


they say don't open old wounds (but you're still brand new)

by somniatoressinespe



Series: flower au madness [1]
Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, also a lot of flower meanings because im a nerd, and a littlle angst because it makes the world go round, because no one stopped me, divine paring BITCH, enjoy, flower shop/ tattoo parlour, top!karolina rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21978436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somniatoressinespe/pseuds/somniatoressinespe
Summary: The girl had passed in front of her shop a grand total of five times before Nico had taken notice of her.Only that's a lie.or "nico overthinks about flower meanings and love, and karolina is a little bit messed up"
Relationships: Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru, nico and tandy brotp because i said so
Series: flower au madness [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585909
Comments: 84
Kudos: 376





	they say don't open old wounds (but you're still brand new)

**Author's Note:**

> by popular demand of exactly nobody: a fic trope from the early 2010's

It starts in the middle of Summer.

And while summer wasn’t a particularly busy time with flowers, not like spring was at least, it’s still busy enough. 

It’s a different type of busy, though. It’s not the time when flowers bloom best, but it is the best time to plant most of them- cyclamen, lilies, belladonnas. 

And the summer flowers… well, Nico likes them best.

Maybe that’s why it’s so surprising, that Nico- in between phone calls to suppliers and planting her own flowers upstairs on her balcony- has the time to notice her.

The girl.

The girl who had passed in front of her shop a grand total of five times before Nico had taken notice of her.

Only that's a lie.

Because Nico had noticed her each time, hadn't she? Had seen her through the glass as she set the new windows displays, had seen her pass again while she took her lunch break on the bench in front of her shop, had seen her each morning as she crossed the street before tucking away from her view.

(But it's on the fifth time that the girl actually comes _i_ _nto_ the shop, so that's when Nico wants to say she's first noticed her because any other truth would fall too heavily on her shoulders and on her tongue.)

In her defence, the girl was hardly someone you could ignore.

Beautiful in the stereotypical all-American kind of way, only not really. Because while it's true that she's blonde and tall and pretty, the way she carries herself, the set of her shoulders, the kind clear eyes... she kinda reminds Nico of a snapdragon.

( **Antirrhinums** , commonly known as snapdragons, flower associated with magic since Ancient Greece:

 **Appearance:** leaves are arranged in a spiral manner around the stem, each stem produces seven or eight spikes of blossom in a season, may contain more than one colour; 

**Meaning:** grace, strength, deviousness;

 **Symbolism:** things are not always what they appear to be, be careful where you thread.)

So, when she sees the girl standing in front of her shop window again, she only spares a glance in her direction and goes back to writing orders- because Tandy told her they have to replenish their stock of wax plants since a crazy lady had come and bought _all_ of them, and she's busy doing _maths_ out of all things and she really doesn’t like this part of her job.

Only this time Snapdragon Girl actually comes inside, and as soon as Nico looks up from the counter, she shoots straight up in the surprise of it. 

She waves her hand in greeting before starting to look around, stopping in front of the small section of cacti she keeps near the back, turning away from Nico's curious gaze- or, well, more like stare.

Because she's staring.

There's no other way to put it, but the girl is only more beautiful up close, and Nico is captivated.

She's not even her type- only no, that's not right, because this girl is about everyone's type or at least anyone with eyes and a working brain- but it's certainly not someone Nico would entertain for more than one night in any case, so she stops her staring and goes to start on one of the many bouquets she has to send off today.

When she looks up from the counter after finishing the second one, Snapdragon Girl is standing in front of her with a small pot of purple gloxinias in her hands. She smiles at her when she pays, and Nico almost wants to tell her the meaning of the flowers she has in her hands.

She doesn’t.

 _Well, that's the end of it,_ she thinks as the girl walks out of her shop with her plant.

Only it's not.

Snapdragon Girl may have passed by her shop five times before coming inside, but after she does so the first time, she keeps coming in for _weeks_ , until the middle of summer gives pass to the warm chill of fall.

(So maybe it starts at the beginning of fall, and not in summer, after all.)

Sometimes she's only in for ten minutes, some others she stands in front of the flowers for what feels like hours, one time she even buys a small lemon tree, but she's always polite, even if a bit quiet- not saying anything more than a thank you and a please- and always leaves with a new kind of flower. 

Gardenias, marigolds, dahlias, it's like she wants to try them all out.

Nico doesn’t know what to make of it.

What’s clear is that Snapdragon Girl doesn’t know anything about flower meanings, or how to take care of plants, if she needs so many every day. Or she has an apartment that closely resembles a small jungle. Nico won’t stop selling them to her, in any case, it’s a steady source of income.

(And because if she did, she would never see the girl again. Nico somehow can’t get over that little association.)

One time, the girl comes inside bringing in with her the smell of seawater and sunshine. 

She's wearing board shorts and a tank top, and a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head, threading sand on the floor Nico will have to sweep later, and she’s not even mad about it -which is _weird,_ because it's _Nico_ and she hates anything beach related, most of all sand- just because of how apologetic the girl looks about it.

The girl looks through the newly potted flowers, and Nico pretends to look through the new shipment of snake plants Tandy swears up and down they _need_ but really, she just can't stop sneaking glances at her.

She can barely make out what looks like a very bright and purple tattoo poking from the tank top, curving around her right shoulder- her surprisingly _t_ _oned_ shoulder, and what the hell is happening to Nico? 

The girl turns around and Nico ducks her head down with burning cheeks, takes the plant in her hands and turns to put it in the first empty shelf she sees.

Snapdragon Girl ends up leaving with a small pot of red freesias this time.

Nico is a weird mix of curiosity and puzzlement, the girl creeping under her skin until she's the only thing she can think about, and Nico doesn’t like it one bit.

It bothers her so much, she even brings it up one time to her roommates- well, one sometimes rent-paying roommate and one ex-boyfriend who sometimes sticks around for a night of Chinese takeout on the couch and bad reality television they all pretend to hate but love to watch. 

As usual, Alex and Tandy aren’t exactly the definition of helpful.

“Maybe she likes you,” he says as he shoves another forkful of rice in his mouth, eyes glued to the TV where the guy is confronting his now ex-girlfriend about her cheating. Nico holds back a disgusted expression, turns to Alex instead.

“I don’t know how we can watch this stuff every time.”

“It's quality television,” he says spouting out the same line of defence, as always. Nico lets it go with a roll of her eyes, as always.

Tandy scoffs from the only armchair they own, feet kicked up in the air. “What do _you_ know of quality television, Brentwood?”

“More than you ever will, probably.”

“Whatever,” Nico says because she’s already heard this argument too many times in her life, “And I don’t think that's it. With Snapdragon Girl, I mean.”

“That’s cute, that you gave her a nickname already,” Tandy coos and Nico really doesn’t know why she even brought this shit up if this is all the help she’s going to get.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend to make out with?”

Tandy snaps to attention, glaring at Nico with surprising intensity for a white girl from the posh part of New Orleans. “Not my boyfriend, Hot Topic.”

“O-kay, how about we tone it down a notch?”

“Her first!” they both snap at Alex- and damn, doesn’t that feel familiar.

“C'mon, let’s go back to teasing Nico,” Alex puts his hands up and Tandy turns back towards the TV with a huff, “As I was saying, she comes in every other day, and that one time she saw me in the shop she barely spared me a glance, so she must be coming in for you.”

“Only she doesn’t speak a word to me, so. Kind of a flawed theory you got there, buddy.”

“Well, maybe she's shy!”

“How is it that you play all those larping and play pretend games and your imagination still sucks?”

Alex gasps, a hand shooting to his chest. “Rude.”

“And besides,” Nico continues rolling her eyes, “I don’t even know if she likes girls.”

“She buys flowers every day, wears a snapback regularly, has a nose ring, and she ignored my face that one time I was in the shop. If she's not gay, I'm a unicorn.”

“He has a point, you know?” Tandy chimes in, throwing popcorn in Nico’s direction and laughing at her affronted ' _hey!'_ , “Also, she didn’t ignore _me_ , so.”

Nico rolls her eyes at her friend’s antics. “Okay, first, don't stereotype. Second, you’re not that hot, Glowstick. Third, if she ignored Alex it only means she has good taste.”

Alex throws a pillow right into her face- Nico exercises all of the notion she knows about self-control to not throw it back into his smug grin. “What does it say about _you_ , then, that you used to date me?”

“A lapse of judgement,” Nico tilts her head with a smirk, “Thankfully, a very brief one.”

“Lucky me,” he shoves her, Tandy laughs at the two of them, and that's that.

She doesn’t stop thinking about the girl, but she stops asking for Alex's or Tandy’s opinions and stops talking about it to them- which means stop talking about it in general, because she's not about to hit Tandy's not-boyfriend or Nico's other ex-boyfriend she’s somehow still friends with up with crazy theories. 

She's not quite there yet.

One day, when Nico hears the bell over the shop door ring, she doesn’t even realize at first that it's the girl, too busy restocking the ceramic pots on the highest shelf and sending mind curses to Alex for building them this high up in the first place.

As she starting to step off the chair, still grumbling, she hears the girl clear her throat and she startles right off it. She braces herself for the brunt of the fall, only it never comes. Instead, she's met with a soft body and strong arms. She looks up and sees Snapdragon Girl’s smiling face beaming down at her.

She shoots up to her feet.

“Shit, I'm so sorry. I just fell on you. Sorry,” she rushes out, stammering as red splotches on her neck, her face.

Nice going, Nico, fall on the pretty girl the first time she tries to speak with you.

“No, no it's fine, it's all my fault I shouldn't have-- it's fine really,” Snapdragon Girl’s voice is raspier than she'd imagined when she doesn’t stick to one-worded sentences, and she only looks prettier up close.

(She notices a rainbow pin on her snapback and _damn it_ \- Alex was right.)

“Still. Really sorry,” Nico takes a deep breath, shifting in her costumer voice- that isn’t much peppier than her usual voice, but she does try to sound less intimidating for her sale’s sake- “How can I help you?”

“It's fine, I was wondering if you had...” she looks at her phone with a grimace, “I think it's pronounced plameris?”

“Plumerias,” Nico corrects as she moves behind the counter, opening the retail list and checking though it, “That's a _pretty_ specific flower, I don’t think we have any in stock, but I guess I could order some for you?”

“Oh. I actually needed those by today, but it's fine, really.”

Snapdragon Girl turns to the door and Nico just wants her to stay a little longer.

“Why are you always here?” she blurts out, only realizing half a second later how rude that question sounded.

“Is it--” Snapdragon Girl turns to her again with a sheepish smile, “Is it a problem that I am?”

“No! No, I was just wondering. You're here almost every day and I guess I got curious,” she shrugs her shoulders, avoiding looking into the girl's clear eyes.

The girl eyes her up and down for a few seconds before the corners of her mouth twitch up. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“Uh?”

“A curious girl, I mean,” Snapdragon Girl says, sauntering back towards the counter before leaning over it.

Flirting.

Snapdragon Girl is _flirting_ with her. 

Nico's smirk slips on her face easy as rain; this is familiar ground, this she knows how to do. “Maybe you don’t know me well enough. Or maybe you bring it out of me.”

Snapdragon Girl tilts her head, a slow smile spreading on her lips- it's more attractive than Nico cares to admit.

“Maybe I should get to know you better, then,” she says, offering her hand, “I'm Karolina.”

She shakes it, touch lingering as they stare at each other. “Nico.”

“Well, what about this, Nico? I'll tell you why I come in here every day if you tell me how you got to own a flower shop, how about it?”

Nico’s eyes narrow without her ever sending the order. “Why do you want to know?”

Snapdragon Girl turns around towards the door and starts walking out, hips swaying like she knows Nico will watch her as she does. “Maybe I'm a curious girl, too.”

Somehow Nico doubts that that is true, too.

Nico keeps watching the door long after Karolina’s gone.

Karolina.

That's a beautiful name- and less weird than referring to her as Snapdragon Girl in her head. It sits well on her, suits her even, and yet... everything about her is off-putting, like a picture not quite straight in its frame, and Nico wants to know more, feel more, unravel her until she's as easy to understand as her flowers.

(It's true, she had never been a curious girl, but Karolina feels like an itch she can't scratch and it's driving her mad.)

She doesn’t see her the next morning.

Not that Nico had spent even more time than usual picking up an outfit that morning, expecting her to come in. Not that Nico spends the whole morning staring at the shop's door, waiting for her to do so.

That would be _ridiculous_.

And if she had- if she does- it's only because it's another slow day at the shop and she's bored.

She's not even disappointed she hadn’t shown up. 

It was probably for the best. What was she thinking, flirting like that with someone she hadn't shared more than a few words with? For all she knows, Snapdragon Girl- Karolina, Karolina, Karolina- could be a serial killer or something.

She doesn’t even know her surname, and there are more Karolinas than you'd think in L.A.- she knows, because when she had tried to look her up on Instagram and then Facebook, she had found there was _a lot_. She lets her head fall down to the counter with a thump.

So, yeah.

Probably for the best she hadn’t come.

Really.

Totally.

The bell over the door rings. Nico resists the urge to groan out loud when it's just another fidgety guy in a suit, kind of wants to roll her eyes at herself for being this strung up. She makes the enneth apology bouquet of her life and sends the guy on his way.

(Sometimes she wonders why she’s chosen this line of work. She remembers why just as often.)

 _Well,_ she thinks with a sigh, _might as well do some actual work._

She almost slams the first box in place, leaning way too much on the side of too heavy for her and she has half a mind to rope Tandy into doing it, but god knows that girl won’t do any heavy lifting if she can help it and would just end up making Tyrone do it for her, and that poor boy suffers enough by being Tandy’s… best friend? Boyfriend? She doesn’t know- she doubts even they know.

She lifts another box and pushes all thought of the alluring girl out of her mind.

(Or well, she tries at least.)

Later, she's getting ready to close up when a voice sneaks up on her.

“Hey.”

She jumps about four feet in the air. 

She turns, finger lifted and more than ready to chew out whoever thought greeting her while she was handling the day’s takings was a good idea, only to stop in her tracks when she sees it's Karolina, wearing tight, _tight_ purple pants and a frankly useless sweatshirt in a deeper purple, cut off so it barely covers anything under her chest and showing off honest-to-god abs- so, you know, as breath-taking as usual.

“Hi,” she greets back, hand dropping down in a flash, eyes flashing to the distracting sliver of skin Karolina’s crop top leaves out in the open, “You're a little late today.”

“I'm right on time, actually.”

“For what?”

“For our date, of course,” Karolina says as she takes out what looks a small chocolate box from behind her back, blushing slightly at her next words, “I thought it'd be kinda cheap to buy you flowers from your own shop.”

That's... surprisingly endearing and thoughtful. She shakes that line of thought off, as she takes the box, setting it on the counter- and she will literally murder Tandy if she gets anywhere near those. “I don’t remember agreeing to a date.”

“You didn’t say no.”

“You're awfully confident.”

“I know,” Karolina smirks and goes out of the shop, popping her head back in when Nico doesn’t follow her after a while, “You coming?”

Nico rolls her eyes but takes the jacket from hook and follows Karolina out.

“It's a bit late for coffee,” she says as she finishes closing the shop down, Karolina shrugging on a black leather jacket that looked more like Nico’s style than hers, but that looked well-loved, the leather distressed over the elbows and shoulders.

(And it’s truly unfair, how Karolina looks wearing it.)

“How do you feel about a drink then?”

“Lead the way.”

She follows Karolina to a hole-in-the-wall place, just a few blocks over from her shop. 

It's small and falls into all of the categories that would lead Nico to ever set foot in it usually, but the atmosphere is charming- or more like, Karolina is charming, in an unassuming, effortless way that only adds to it and makes Nico feel as if she's the only other person in the room.

It's addicting, Nico knows, attention like that.

“So, why flowers?” Karolina asks once they're set into a booth, a bowl of nuts and a pair of beers in between them.

“Why do you come in every day?” she counters crossing her arms over her chest, because it isn’t exactly a secret, the reason why, but it’s pretty close to something like that.

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second,” Nico smarts back and Karolina laughs- a silver, hypnotizing thing that leaves Nico in a daze. She recovers quickly, though looking away. “Ladies first.”

“I'm a tattoo artist.”

She scoffs, turning back to her and flicking a peanut shell off the table. “No, you're not.”

“I am. I own the shop that just opened down the street,” Karolina says, taking a business card out from her wallet, dark and sleek and professional looking.

“Oh. You don’t look like one, though,” Nico blinks, realizing how unbelievably rude she had just been, “I mean. You just don’t have many. For a tattoo artist. Tattoos, I mean.”

“Not many you can see without me taking my shirt off, no,” she says, her upper lip displaying her teeth in a feral grin that leaves Nico more than a little flustered.

She feels her cheeks heat up. She looks down into her beer hoping it's not too noticeable. From Karolina's satisfied smirk she knows it is.

“So... why flowers?” Karolina asks again, a dog with a bone.

“Why tattoos?”

“Do you always answer a question with another question?”

“Do you?”

“Well, I answered yours,” Karolina says as she lays her head against an arm, her hair falling to the side like a drape and Nico finds herself summoning an image that’s half dream and all fantasy of Karolina’s hair draping over herself like a cathedral, Nico the supplicant on her knees before her. 

She forces the image out of her head and focuses back to what Karolina’s saying. “You didn’t, you just gave me a piece of information that didn’t pertain to the question asked.”

“What are you? A lawyer?”

“Maybe,” she says as she picks apart the shell of pistachio meticulously, trying to avoid looking for too long into Karolina's clear blue eyes that make her feel and imagine _things_ she doesn’t want to voice out loud. 

The shell leaves red indents on Nico’s fingertips.

Karolina only laughs, bringing her beer to her lips- and that’s another dangerous subject for Nico’s sanity. “How about you answer my question and I'll answer one of yours? How do you like that, law school?”

“What? Like truth or dare?” she says, popping the pistachio in her mouth and desperately hoping she sounds more confident than she actually feels.

“More like truth or truth.”

“That seems like a bad idea.”

Karolina considers it with a tilt of her head, scrunching her nose slightly. Nico picks another pistachio. “Okay, how about one truth and two lies. If you pick wrong, you take a shot.”

“Are all your pick-up lines seventh grader's games?”

Karolina smirks, before waving the bartender down with a polite smile. “That depends... are they working?”

Nico rolls her eyes, refusing to answer that question.

(Yes, they are. It's ever so annoying.)

A few quick exchanged words to the clealy amused bartender later, two shot glasses are placed in front of them with a thud.

“What? No chaser?” she asks, playing with the condensation on her glass.

“Why?” Karolina’s grin gets wider, almost feral, and Nico should really _not_ be focusing on how hot she looks right now, because her lips are moving again, “Too much for you?”

“I was worried about you actually, Princess.”

“Why flowers?”

“You're persistent, I'll give you that,” she holds three fingers up, counting down with each sentence, trying to find a way to answer her truthfully without actually giving it away, “I inherited the shop from my parents, I wanted to be a wedding planner but decided flowers were my true calling, I've dropped out of college without a plan and fell into it.”

Karolina stares at her for a long time, leaning in close until their noses are less than an inch apart until she feels like her eyelashes could brush against Nico's cheek. 

(She suppresses a shiver.) 

“That's... you're too good at this game, I may have made a mistake.”

“Maybe,” she leans into Karolina too- because two can play that game- “So, which one?”

“You don’t look like someone who’d want to deal with weddings,” Karolina says, and Nico kind of wants to laugh because Karolina’s _right_ but also because she actually does deal with weddings on the regular, so she’s also so very _wrong_ , “The parents one.”

Nico lets her mouth fall open in surprise, eyebrows shooting up and eyes widening, but as soon as Karolina's lips curl in victory, Nico drops the act and smirks. 

“Drink up.”

Karolina's eyes widen comically, and Nico can’t help the laugh that escapes her lips at the sight. “ _What?_ No way! Which is it one, then? It can’t be the wedding planner thing! Please tell me it’s not the wedding planner thing.”

Nico lifts one eyebrow and Karolina rolls her eyes, shooting back the shot with ease before asking her again.

“That's not in the rules,” Nico shakes her head, smirk still in place, “My turn. Why do you come in each day?”

“I need to practice how to draw my flowery stuff and your shop is closer than the natural history museum, or maybe my mother is sick and I like to bring her flowers, or maybe,” she stops and looks straight into her eyes, hooded eyelashes and a gaze that makes Nico want to squirm in her place, “I saw you one morning and couldn’t help coming back.”

Not one to back down, Nico holds her gaze with a straight face. “You're quite forward.”

“And _you_ are not enough.”

Nico smirks and breaks their little staring contest by taking a sip of her drink. “Maybe.”

“So?”

She mulls it over, Karolina looks nice enough that the mum one seems plausible enough, but something in the way she said the word mother leaves her unsure. The third one feels full-face enough to be left out as anything but an overt come-on- not even someone like Karolina could let this much show in jest.

“The first one,” she decides with a nod.

Karolina lets out a small, disbelieving laugh, but accepts her defeat gracefully, tipping back the shot without as much as a flinch- Nico’s impressed despite herself. “You really are too good at this… I may be in over my head.”

“Don’t worry I’ll go easy on you.”

Karolina leans close again, and Nico's drawn to her like a moth to a flame. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“Your turn,” Nico says because if she didn’t, she’d probably just kiss her.

“What's your favourite colour?”

“That's not really two lies one truth material,” Nico points out with a small smile.

“Humour me.”

She pretends to think about it for a second, Karolina’s eyes never straying for hers. “Black, black, or black?”

“No, it's not.”

Nico straightens, eyebrows shooting far up into her forehead. “And how would you know that?”

“It's yellow, isn’t it?”

Her eyes widen, a flash of pain clouding them for a second because no, it’s not _her_ favourite colour- not really, not exactly- but at the same time, it is. “How do you--”

“The flower arrangements in the window. There's always some kind of yellow in there. I just figured...” Karolina trails off, her cool façade dropping for a second, something that could almost be classified as a blush creeping on her cheeks.

“I never noticed I did that.”

“Well, I did,” she says and she’s definitely blushing now, and Nico’s almost sure it’s not because of the shot. 

(It’s cute.)

They keep going, shooting questions back and forth until Nico glances down at her phone and finds out hours have passed. Karolina's attention is distracting, other than borderline addictive.

“Time does fly when you're having fun, uh?”

Karolina just gives her a small smile, soft before turning sharper. Then- “Do you want to get out of here?”

“I'm not that easy.”

“Not like that. Maybe later, though,” Nico rolls her eyes at her wink, but Karolina continues as if she didn’t, “There's this art thing my friend invited me to. If you'd like to.”

“An art thing,” she drawls slowly.

“At a gallery, yes.”

And strangely Nico is not ready for the night to be over yet, a yes dancing on the tip of her tongue. She swallows it down.

“I don’t think I’m dressed appropriately for an art gallery,” she tries to deflect, gesturing to herself and more importantly the stains of mud that seemed to be sewed into her clothes- stains Nico couldn’t seem to get rid, no matter how hard she scrubbed, stains she had just decided to roll with in the end, but still very noticeable.

“It's a hipster thing. We'll be fine,” Karolina stands up, downing her drink in one go and looking expectantly at Nico, “So?”

And fuck it, the sight of Karolina hovering over her is way too alluring to say no to. 

“Sure.”

As they get outside, Karolina leads her down an axe murdering kind of alleyway. Nico stops walking with a frown already in place.

“Is this the point in the night when you axe murder me?”

Karolina laughs again and a sound like that could rule the world, Nico thinks. “No axe murdering don’t worry.”

“I’m sure you say that to every girl you’ve ever axe murdered,” Nico says, but follows her into the dark axe murdering alleyway anyway.

“Here,” Karolina says as she comes to a stop.

“Are you kidding me?”

Karolina stands near the motorbike- a yellow scrambler, like the ones bad boys have in old movies, and Karolina's standing over it like a fucking movie star, looking too good and sinful to be true in her _leather_ jacket- the fucking _motorbike,_ like it's nothing, pushing her hair out of the way and putting on a yellow helmet, passing a black one to her.

“No?” Karolina tilts her head with a frown, “It's kinda far, but if you don’t feel comfortable we can walk.”

Nico shakes her head and takes the offered helmet. “That's not it.”

When she fails to properly close it, Karolina gestures for her to come closer, and closes it herself- the lack of space between them kind of freezes Nico’s brain a little. “Then what? It's been hours since the shots, I swear I’m not going to make us crash.”

“Yeah, that's not it either,” Nico mutters and gets on the stupidly, _stupidly_ sexy motorbike.

**

As soon as they arrive, Karolina helps her out of her jacket like a true gentleman, handing both hers and Nico’s to the cloakroom clerk, before taking her hand and tugging Nico inside the main exhibition.

And she guesses Karolina was right.

It _is_ a hipster thing- the old Tandy, the one before Ty came around with all of his good deeds and morals, could have had a field day in this crowd, really- and nobody spares them a second glance. 

(They turn and look at Karolina, of course, but they stop when they notice their entangled hands, often with a forlorn look that leaves Nico with a feeling of misguided self-satisfaction and a smug smirk pulling at the corner of her lips.)

They're browsing around slowly when Karolina tugs her to a stop in front of a huge canvas painted in the colours of a dying galaxy, filled with angry reds and violent yellows and a sense of desperation- but also with soft greens on the edge that promise a future.

“Have you ever heard a song, or saw something and then your blood is pumping? That's how I feel about this one,” Karolina brings a hand to almost rest against Nico's chest, hovering just above her heart.

She's close and Nico could count her eyelashes if she so wanted, she could kiss her, she could hook an arm around her neck and bring her down to her lips, she could--

“Oh. I guess you can.”

“Uh?”

“Your heart is racing.”

Nico averts her eyes from Karolina's, trying desperately to come up with something to say that isn’t a variation of _kiss me, kiss me, kiss me._

“So, you like art?” she feels stupid the moment it comes out of her mouth but thankfully Karolina just laughs.

“I mean, I _am_ a tattoo artist. Kinda comes with the job.”

“Of course!” Nico fumbles with her words until they come out in a stuttering mess, “Of course you like art, you're an artist. Of course, I didn’t mean to--”

“I love art,” Karolina interrupts the flow of words coming out of Nico's mouth with another small laugh, “I've been drawing since I was a child. I've gotten way too many detentions and reprimands for doodling in class or on desks.”

“I hadn’t pegged you for a bad girl.”

“You didn’t peg me for a tattoo artist either.”

“You don’t look the part, in my defence.”

“I contain multitudes,” Karolina says, sticking her chin upwards and making her laugh.

“I can see that,” Nico says, and if she lets her eyes roam Karolina’s figure up and down, well… did she say already she really liked the stupidly impractical sweatshirt?

Karolina smirks before parroting her words back with a tilt of her head- her hair cascade around her like a waterfall and Nico’s in over her head. “So, you like art?”

“I don’t know,” Nico finds herself answering honestly.

“How can you not know?”

“I think...” she trails off, looking up at the giant canvas again, “I think art is supposed to hurt you, and I don’t know if I like that.”

Karolina stays quiet for a long time, staring at the painting in front of her. Just when Nico thinks she may have shared too much, she speaks out softly.

“I think that maybe sometimes the pain is worth it.”

And, well, Karolina is becoming more and more interesting by the hour.

Nico is stopped from having to think about a proper answer when a shout erupts in the silence of the room.

“Karolina!” a purple-haired girl shouts again from across the room, attracting the stares of half the room, but not giving a fuck about it and Nico has the unshakable feeling she’s going to like her, “I thought you couldn’t come, what, with the way you kept going on and on about your hot date.”

“Gert,” Karolina hisses, murder in her voice and in her eyes.

“Oh, but I see you brought your work home with you.”

“Gert,” Karolina warns her again, this time louder and more to the point, “Don’t be rude. Introduce yourself.”

“Hello, I’m Gert, I cured this little exposition,” the girl- Gert- says, offering her hand to Nico with a grin, “I don’t know if _she_ told you that in between trying to get into your pants."

This time Karolina punches Gert in the shoulder.

She tilts her head at the interaction- they remind her a bit of her and Alex, it's... unsettling. She wonders whether they had dated, too, once upon a time. She shrugs off the tiny prick of jealousy she feels at the thought.

“I'm Nico,” she takes the offered hand with a grin of her own, “And no, she didn’t.”

“How rude of her,” Gert says with a disappointed shake of her head, eyes twinkling with mischief, “Especially since I've heard _all_ about you.”

Before Nico can prove the truth of the statement, Karolina butts in.

“Gert. Is there a point to all of this?”

“Apart from giving you grief? No.”

“Why do I keep you around?” Karolina asks, all exasperated sighs and slouching shoulders, but Nico can see the fondness beneath the façade.

“'Cause I’m hot,” Gert deadpans, nudging Karolina with a smile, “And I send every hipster with a random tattoo crave your way.”

“That’s true… although I think you only send them my way because of your sister. By the way, where’s Molly?”

“What a swift change of topic, Karolina, bringing up my beloved sister you know I can’t help but talk about. She’s here somewhere, smooching her pretty girlfriend she won’t call a girlfriend. I wonder who she takes after…”

“Gert!”

Nico laughs delighted by the exchange, and she had been right- she totally likes her. “I like you.”

“See?,” Gert turns to Karolina with a smug look and Karolina rolls her eyes, “ _She_ likes me.”

“Can you please stop trying to both terrorize and steal my date at the same time,” Karolina says with a smile so sharp that Nico’s sure it could cut glass. It's kind of hot.

“We'll see,” Gert looks at her with considering eyes, before a more genuine smile makes space on her face, “So, is she treating you right?”

Before Nico can think of the proper answer to give her, Karolina shoves Gert away from her. “Gert, if you're done, you can leave.”

“Oh, but do I _want_ to?”

“Yes. Yes, you do,” Karolina says, pushing her still away from Nico, but this time with more instance.

“Yes. Yes, I do,” Gert lets herself be pushed away while she starts nodding, but the shit-eating grin is still glued onto her face.

“Gert,” Karolina warns her once more.

“Bye Nico,” she twirls her fingers and drawls her two-syllables name out so much Nico is almost impressed, “Hope to see more of you.”

“Sure.” 

“I'm sorry about her,” Karolina says as soon as Gert is out of earshot.

“Eh,” Nico shrugs her shoulders, “I do like her.”

“Please don’t. It will get to her head.”

“Too late.”

“You know,” Karolina says, cocking her hips slightly, “It’s bad manners to flirt with someone when you’re on a date with someone else.”

“This was a _date_? My bad,” Nico shrugs again, like _‘who would have thought?’_ and passes on a new canvas, “You coming?”

Karolina smiles, shakes her head, and follows.

Their hands brush together as they walk, and Nico desperately wants, for some reason, to hold Karolina’s hand again.

She stops in front of another painting, this one of a girl glowing in the colours of the rainbow, like the brightest pride flag Nico had ever seen. Karolina stops next to her, her hand so close.

Nico swallows as she starts to inch closer to Karolina’s hand, she risks a glance towards Karolina and she’s looking back at her with the softest smile Nico has ever seen. Nico blushes, chickening out and looking away.

Karolina huffs a small laugh, before sliding her hand in hers, tugging her to the next painting.

(Nico does not smile like an idiot.)

**

It’s some half an hour later after they’ve gone through the whole gallery and talked and talked and talked when Nico realizes she may be in over her head. 

It happens around the time Karolina’s talking excitedly about some painting technique and Nico can’t do anything but watch her as the neon lights over her head make it seem like she’s shining of her own light- it’s holy, sacred, heavenly, and Nico is running out of adjectives to describe Karolina.

Thank god they’re sitting down, because Nico may have fainted when Karolina had turned to her all bright-eyed and pink, pink lips.

Karolina stops in her monologue to look at her. 

She’s tilting her head, and the look in her eyes so closely resembles Nico’s, that she wonders for a second whether all that stuff about eyes being the mirror of one’s souls was true- whether she and Karolina were some kind of kindred souls- only it’s so ridiculous a thought she pushes it away as soon as it comes to her.

“I think I’m having another bad idea,” Karolina whispers, eyes flicking between Nico’s eyes and mouth, her hand slowly ever so slowly moving towards Nico’s face and cupping her cheek, tilting her head just so.

“Which--” Nico’s voice gets caught in her throat, she dry swallows, “Which is?”

The only answer Nico gets is Karolina's other hand coming to rest on her leg, her fingers splaying on her thigh in a slow, deliberate move, and Nico’s skin burns through the thin layer of her jeans.

“That _is_ a bad one,” Nico says, but she leans halfway into her anyway, angling her body to fold into Karolina’s.

Karolina's smile turns feral as she drops the last two inches to Nico's mouth.

(And really, Nico shouldn’t trust anyone with a smile that white.)

“I don’t really do feelings,” Nico warns her, so close their lips almost brush together when she speaks, so close she thinks she could feel the flutter of Karolina's lashes against her cheekbones if she closed her eyes.

“That's fine,” Karolina says, closing the gap all at once, “Neither do I.”

And God, Karolina kisses like she knows exactly what she’s doing, and a small part of Nico feels almost jealous of whomever came before her that taught Karolina how to kiss like this, and another bigger, less possessive part of her is just grateful she’s here now to reap the benefits for herself.

The kiss itself is slow, unhurried like Karolina knows Nico would be content to just make out forever- she wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that, either.

Still, Nico wasn’t one particularly known for her patience.

She trails her hand down Karolina's waist, fisting a handful of blonde hair with the other. Karolina lets out a breathy moan that sends a spike of heat right to her core. A moan that is also immensely inappropriate for the setting they’re right in, so Nico pulls them apart.

“You wanna get out of here?”

“I thought you weren’t that easy,” Karolina teases. Nico bites her neck in retaliation and Karolina moans quietly again- and yes, that’s immensely inappropriate.

She raises an eyebrow, too strung up to actually banter. “Well, do you want to?”

“Please,” Karolina says, and it comes out like a whimper, a promise, a prayer.

She texts Tandy to scram away from the apartment, not bothering to check if she actually reads it or not. In any case, she had more or less warned her as the roommate code explicitly demanded, so she upheld her part of the deal.

(God knows how many times _she_ was the one who had to escape when Tyrone came around for a visit.)

(Not my boyfriend my ass.)

The motorcycle ride is at the same time excruciatingly long and extremely short. By the time they arrive at Nico’s apartment, she’s about ready to just jump Karolina on the front steps of her shop. She doesn’t do that. But she does trail burning kisses around her neck, pushing her against her elevator door, because she may have some self-control, but it really isn’t much.

(On second thought, Karolina’s sweater wasn’t stupid at all, Nico’s hands tracing the path of Karolina’s abs without having to deal with something troublesome like fabric.)

When she finally lets Karolina go for long enough to search for her keys and let them inside, she lets out a moan as Karolina more or less slams her against the closing door, her throat itching to let out another one when Karolina makes use of it to slip her tongue into her mouth.

She grasps her neck, bringing her down more firmly against her. Karolina answers by slipping her hands down to her thighs, breaking off the kiss with questioning eyes. 

At Nico's ragged nod, she lifts her up and Nico wraps her legs against her torso, still pushed against the door, but this time trapped on every direction by Karolina’s body.

“Should--” she lets out another moan when Karolina moves her lips to her neck, “Should we talk about this?”

“Do you want to?” she hears Karolina mumble against her neck, before sucking on a spot that makes Nico's whole-body tremble.

“Not really, no,” she gasps out, burying a hand in Karolina’s hair and pressing into her more fully, as Karolina resumes her kissing.

“Good. I've always been more of a hands-on person.”

“That's _not_ as hot as you think it is,” Nico struggles to get out as another moan threatens to quake out of her.

Karolina’s hand travels up to her ass, giving it a short squeeze, before going back to the back of her thighs sustaining her against the door. “Why do I have a feeling you’re very wet at the moment, then?”

Nico holds her head high, looking at Karolina through her eyelashes. “Pity.”

“Sure,” Karolina surges forward bringing Nico's lips down to her, stealing her breath, “Where's your bedroom?”

Nico's moan spills into Karolina's mouth before she can answer her.

“Second door to the right.”

“Mhm,” Karolina hums against her lips, “You might have to get down from there if we want to reach it.”

“Why, I thought you were a hands-on person.”

Karolina adjusts her grip with a grunt in lieu of an actual answer and carries her to her bedroom without breaking a sweat- which is very, very _hot_ , not that Nico will tell her that it is- and then spends the whole night stealing her breath again and again and again.

But it’s fine.

Nico’s nothing if not a competitive girl.

**

Nico is staring. 

There is no way around it, Nico is lounging on her bed and just _staring_ at Karolina as she picks her clothes from the floor. 

It’s a great view and Nico likes it more than it’s safe- probably, possibly, certainly- but Karolina is all defined muscles and soft curves where Nico is lean and sharp corners, and she may be getting lost mapping all the differences, all the dips and valleys of Karolina’s body. 

She also isn’t being very subtle about it.

“Didn’t your parents teach you staring is rude?”

Nico doesn’t bother stopping doing so, just shrugs the one shoulder she’s not leaning on. “Never got around to explaining that one. Shame, isn’t it?”

Karolina laughs and the sound makes Nico’s heart stutter in her chest just as much as the sight of her does.

(Yes, definitely not safe. Dangerous, even.)

“You could stay the night,” Nico says as she watches Karolina put her jeans back on, mourning the loss of full, long, naked legs in display while simultaneously truly enjoying the way her hips shimmy to make them fit, as she decides to play it coy.

Karolina sends her a look, and Nico swallows, before continuing. “My bed is good for sleep, too, not just… other things.”

Karolina bends to find her t-shirt and Nico’s eyes fall automatically to her ass and her thighs- oh God, her thighs, Nico should _not_ be this attached to Karolina’s thighs already- before trailing upwards to her back, covered in colours. 

And there’s that too, now that Nico thinks about it, to look at, because it turns out that that thing Karolina said about her tattoos being hidden by her shirt wasn’t just a pick-up line, her back truly a tapestry of colour.

There’s a galaxy growing out of the nape of her neck, turning and twisting around her upper back and arms- planets and constellations littering her skin like freckles- and a smaller something down the slope of her spine Nico can’t make the detail of but would love to map with her fingers, maybe her tongue.

“I don’t think that's a very smart idea,” Karolina says, and Nico snaps back into the conversation. 

And Karolina’s right, probably, possibly, but. But, Nico. A very competitive girl, and also very dumb at times. Like now.

“Yeah, but I never have many of those, so,” she shrugs again and slowly starts sitting up on the bed, and Karolina, for as much she tried playing it cool, is now also staring at Nico intently.

She shifts her weight from one shoulder to another, arches her back slightly and just like that Karolina throat goes up and down in a swallow, her eyes never leaving Nico’s body.

It’s oh, so satisfying, to watch Karolina look at her like that.

And Nico knows, for the record, that it's a bad idea, but she also knows Karolina probably doesn’t want to go home now, and her bed feels suddenly colder than a few seconds before Karolina got up.

It’s the cold, really, that makes her offer.

Nothing more, nothing less.

“I know how this goes, Nico,” Karolina says, but the shirt she holds in her hands falls to the floor, followed by her just-put-on jeans, the sound of them hitting the ground feeling like the last nail hammered in Nico’s grave.

Nico smirks, curling her lips in that way that makes people think she’s dangerous- not that they’d be wrong- as she watches Karolina swallow again, enjoying the way the sight of Karolina, flushed and naked and _hers,_ at least for the night, coats her insides with that slick warmth that so resembles molasses and butterflies and sheer anticipation. 

“How does it go?”

Karolina shakes her head without any laughter, but comes back to bed, to her, anyway. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“You're not going to hurt me.”

“Yeah, not what I meant,” is the last thing Karolina whispers before falling on Nico’s mouth, and sleep is the last thing on Nico’s mind right about now.

**

The next morning, Nico wakes up to a warm bed for the first time in months.

Which is weird, because she wakes up and for a second she doesn’t remember why she’s feeling warm exactly. 

Then she looks at the weight she feels over her stomach, then up and to the left, and she finds Karolina sound asleep and curled over her, blonde hair a mess over Nico’s pillows.

(So much for not wanting to stay the night.)

She slowly turns in Karolina’s hold, buries her nose in the place where her shoulders met her neck, and goes back to sleep.

(So much for not doing feelings.)

When she wakes up next, it’s from a slowly building moan stuck in her throat and Karolina’s face very close to her neck.

“Morning,” she breathes out.

“Good morning,” Karolina mumbles against her neck, before continuing leaving her trail of blazing hot kisses against Nico’s jaw, her neck.

Nico has all the mind to just close her eyes and let Karolina keep doing whatever magic she’s doing for at least another hour or a few centuries when her eyes fall on the clock on her nightstand flashing the wrong number at her.

“Shit. Stop.”

Karolina detaches herself immediately with a resounding wet plop. “What? Why?”

“I have to make a delivery to a wedding reception in less than an hour.”

“Oh,” Karolina relaxes back in her position on top of her, forearm trapping Nico’s head on the pillow, “We have all the time in the world, then.”

“I _really_ do not,” Nico says, pushing Karolina’s body away and missing her warmth the second she does, but still, _work_ , so, “You clearly have never met a white, rich bride. I hate to do this to you, but would you mind…"

Karolina sighs, but smiles right after, letting Nico know she’s just kidding. “I’ll get right out of your hair. But… shower first?”

“Sure, whatever you need.”

Karolina’s smile turns impish, really testing Nico’s self-control and rigid work ethics. “Shower together?”

And Nico can almost imagine it, the hot water and the cold tiles pressing against her back, Karolina’s smooth skin all in her reach, her blonde hair drenched and dripping, dripping… she shakes the thought out of her head. 

Bitchy, rich white lady’s flowers.

“No.”

“Don't you want to save water?”

“No.”

“What would Greta Thunberg say?” Karolina says- with a dorky grin that Nico’s coming to think is probably permanent feature on the girl- and Nico laughs despite herself but shakes her head with finality. 

“I'm already late,” Nico says, sniffing a pair of paints she takes from the back of her drawer before deciding it’s probably fine and putting them on, “And I know that if I get into that shower with you I’ll only be later.”

“I'll be good,” Karolina purrs in her ear, suddenly so close she can feel the heat of her without touching or being touched. 

And yes, Karolina’s tall, Nico knew that on a surface level, but without the usual extra inches her boots offer her, Nico hadn't noticed exactly how much Karolina towers over her- or how much Nico was _i_ _nto_ it. 

Karolina’s warm hand falls to her side and Nico dry swallows.

Bitchy, rich white lady’s flowers, and the money that comes with them.

“That's what worries me,” she shoves Karolina away and into the bathroom before she can think better of it, putting on a mostly clean shirt, “Close the door behind you.”

She hears Karolina laugh before shouting an affirmative just as Nico’s rushing out of the door taking her car keys with her.

Later, when she _finally_ gets back from her delivery and _finally_ showers herself, she’ll find a string of number scrawled over the mist of her bathroom mirror, and it’s so insufferably smooth Nico almost doesn’t text her.

She does text her, though. And Nico is a firm believer in starting small and building up, so she types out every kind of variation of the word 'hello' she can think of before settling on a small and simple _hey_.

(Nailed it.)

Karolina’s reply comes almost as soon as she puts her phone down.

 **Karolina (15.06):** _coming back at yours at 8?_

And Nico doesn’t know what to feel, between the way her skin burns with anticipation and embarrassment that she’s so easy to read.

 **Nico (15.06):** _I only said hey._

She puts on her favourite worn down sweatpants and hoodie- that may or may not have been Alex’s once upon a time- and _finally_ makes her third cup of coffee of the day. She slumps in her favourite chair, relaxes, as she’s definitely not waiting for Karolina to text back.

Unfortunately, the relaxing only last a few minutes, before she hears the keys turn into her front door, announcing Tandy return from her sex induced banishment.

“So, what’s up with Snapdragon Girl?” Tandy asks as she steps into their apartment.

“This is the last time I ever tell you anything, ever.”

“Don’t be like that, it was cute. Not cute: the fact I had to go sleep at Tyrone’s yesterday to protect my innocence from your fling with, like, a thirty seconds warning,” Tandy curls her nose, like she doesn’t even know why she puts up with her- and really, Nico sometimes wonders the same thing.

“It's just sex,” she finally answers her taking a sip from her coffee. Her phone pings with a new message notification as soon as she says it- and well, talk about comic timing.

“Just sex?”

“Yeah,” Nico says, suddenly feeling more than a little defensive at her incredulous tone, “Casual.”

“Does _she_ know that?”

“ _She_ is the one who suggested it, actually.”

Tandy makes a face at that- her ‘I’m judging you really hard, but Tyrone would be disappointed in me if I actually did say anything about it, so I’ll just stare at you’ face- folding her arms across her chest. “Oh, Nico.”

“Don't 'Oh, Nico' me. What?”

“It's gonna end in tragedy.”

“You don’t know that.”

Tandy just keeps on looking at her like she’s the worst case of denial she has ever seen, and really, Nico doesn’t need this kind of judgement in her life, so she stands up from the table taking her phone and her coffee cup with her and tries not to think about what that look meant.

**Karolina (15.11):** _so 7?_

(She answers Karolina’s text with an affirmative.)

(She hopes Tandy isn’t right.)

**

Karolina and Nico had been… texting for a while. 

A longer while than Nico’s texting with pretty people she has slept with usually ends up being. Nico could bet a longer while than Karolina’s usual texting, too. So long, the last winds of summer leave pass to the fallen leaves of fall.

And it’s fine. It’s good, and it has been mostly fun.

Maybe that’s why Nico still hasn’t broken it off, because it has been fun, and she likes that Karolina doesn’t expect more from her other than some texting and fun times. Of course, sometimes a little friendship comes through, too, but Nico feels like they’re handling the situation well.

Maybe what’s worrying is that Karolina doesn’t stop buying flowers almost every day, but now she also comes to the shop without a reason, and Nico isn’t bothered by the fact as she usually would have been if any of her old fuck-buddies tried a stunt like that. 

But there are no feelings involved, and they’re casual, and it’s not like Nico does feelings or like the sight Karolina makes her heart skip a beat in her chest or anything.

(Apart from those times when her heart _does_ skip a beat in her chest because Karolina had sent her a silly picture on Instagram with some absurd filter, and she’s almost certain it’s not just attraction she feels when Karolina smiles at her after a kiss. Mostly certain.)

Whatever, Nico’s handling it.

Not well, but like fuck being a functional adult, right?

And if today she’s a bit more apprehensive than usual, it’s just because Tandy stuck her with her least favourite part of her job- braiding the flower crowns- and absolutely not because Karolina hadn’t come around for her daily visit yet.

It’s about a half an hour later when Karolina does finally show up, a coffee cup in her hand and a smile on her face.

Not that Nico was waiting.

“What are you doing?”

“Is that a pumpkin latte?” she asks instead of answering, a smirk on her lips, “Are you _that_ kind of white girl?”

“I’ll have you know it’s a hot chocolate,” Karolina sticks her tongue out, before muttering a small, “But yes, it’s pumpkin spice flavoured.”

“White girl,” Nico coughs in her hand, and Karolina laughs, the sound filling the small shop with warmth instantly.

Karolina plops on the counter, dangling her feet. “So, whatcha doing? Braiding flowers?”

Nico sighs, finishing the last knot before setting her work on the ground and standing up. “Tandy stuck me with her stupid job.”

“Her job is to braid flower crowns?” Karolina asks, brows furrowed and nose scrunched in that way Nico shouldn’t think is so adorable. 

"When she doesn't disappear and leave it to me, yes."

She bends down, picking one of Nico’s fallen white carnations before twirling it in her hands thoughtfully, and Nico might have a heart attack if Karolina kept making her overanalyse every meaning of each flower she holds in her hands.

( **Dianthus Caryophyllus,** commonly known as carnations:

 **Appearance:** flower with many spiky petals, comes in a variety of colours but was originally pink or peach;

 **Meaning:** love, fascination;

 **Symbolism:** if yellow, indecision and uncertainty in one’s feelings, if red, a passionate and burning love, if white, a proclamation of eternal love.)

Karolina looks at her through hooded lashes and Nico forgets she's supposed to still be talking.

“So, yeah. They're for funerals, weddings, Coachella…” she ignores the spike in her heart’s rhythm and starts listing off, wrapping all the unused flowers up. 

She knows she won’t get any work done with Karolina standing there looking all pretty and distracting, anyway.

“Cool,” Karolina smiles bright like a kid on Christmas’s eve, handing her the carnation and Nico almost forgets to breathe, “Do I get a discount for the Coachella ones?”

Go figure this is the woman Nico is attracted to.

“God, stop talking or I might reconsider ever having sex with you again.”

“You wouldn’t. So?”

Nico shrugs her shoulders and leans against the counter, playing it cool. “I don’t know. What can you offer?”

“I could trade you a kiss,” Karolina says, slowly making her way to Nico before putting a hand on either side of her and leaning down just so, almost pushing their bodies together but not quite.

“Just a kiss? That's not a very sound marketing strategy.”

Karolina pouts, and Nico can't help but rock on her tiptoes, pressing her lips to hers. Karolina tastes like chocolate and a bit of the cold wind howling outside.

“So, I can get the discount?” Karolina quips, pecking Nico’s lips again when Nico shakes her head.

“Nope.”

“Rude. What if I traded you a question?”

And Nico knows how bad a deal that is- to have someone who could ask anything, anything at all and being requited to answer truthfully- and she knows that Karolina knows too. What scares Nico is that it seems like Karolina doesn’t care.

It feels reckless even to say yes.

“Ok.”

“Yeah?” Karolina smirks- and that feels reckless, too- “What's the question then?”

Nico pretends to think about it for a few seconds, tapping her fingers against her chin. She tilts her head to the side when she finally has her answer.

“Never said I'd have to ask it now.”

“You sure you didn’t go to law school?”

Nico just smiles her best ‘mysterious goth next door’ smile, the one she knows sends shivers down Karolina’s spine.

Karolina huffs but relents without further arguing. She doesn’t step away, though, her warmth irradiating into Nico with each breath she takes. “When do you get off?”

“Hopefully later,” Nico says with a wink, just to watch Karolina blush again.

“I meant when you get off your shift.”

“I know,” Nico deadpans and Karolina’s face gets redder, “And I own the place so whenever I want, I guess.”

“That's hot,” Karolina mumbles, still very red, her body still very distractingly close to Nico’s.

Nico pretends not to hear because she has morals and ethics and she won’t fuck Karolina on her shop’s floor in between roses stems- she’s not even entertaining the thought, and not only because Tandy would never let her hear the end of it if she did. 

“What did you have in mind?” she asks, instead of jumping Karolina right where she’s standing- or well, leaning.

“There’s this bar that does live music on Friday nights. If you wanna go.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

“Why?” Karolina asks, and there goes the scrunched nose again- Nico barely restrains a cooing noise at the sight.

“Is it going to be crowded?” Nico tilts her head, leaves a small kiss on her favourite spot of Karolina’s neck, “Will I have to fend off your many, many suitors?”

“I take it you don’t like sharing, then?”

“Not when it comes to you, no.”

“Flatterer.”

She leaves another kiss to Karolina’s neck. “As long as it gets me laid.”

Karolina leans down like the holy spirit, descending on Nico’s lips and setting her on fire, flames licking her insides when she slips her tongue in her mouth, her hands under her shirt.

“So, ten-ish?” Karolina says, breaking the kiss like it’s nothing like Nico doesn’t need three working days just to remember how to breathe again, “I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay.”

“It’s a date,” Karolina calls out just as the door slams closed behind her.

**

It’s not a date.

It’s not a date and Nico doesn’t spend more than an hour looking in her closet in anxious search for the perfect outfit- because they’re not dating, they’re not going on a date, and it would be stupid to do so- and Tandy is a liar for saying she had. 

It’s not a date, and Nico isn’t nervous, shouldn’t be nervous, can’t be nervous- because it’s not a date and she doesn’t even _like_ Karolina like that.

(Even if that statement tasted more and more like a lie every time she said it.)

It’s not a date and maybe Karolina does come to pick her up- no bike this time- but it’s not for any reason that isn’t convenient, and if Karolina wraps her arm around Nico’s shoulder as they walk, it’s only because it’s cold, and… and Nico is running out of excuses.

So.

It’s still not a date.

Karolina opens the door to the pub for her and _damn,_ it feels like a date.

And Nico knows that this isn’t something to be pointing out, or even talk about. They had an agreement, after all- sure, they said about ten words about it since the whole thing started, but Nico shouldn’t be worried about this. Why is she so worried about this?

So.

“Why are we here?” she asks with all the subtlety of brain surgery with a chainsaw, scanning the pub for any source of romanticism- she doesn’t find any, the band playing some kind of classic rock song and the pub itself seedy enough Nico knows Karolina doesn’t mean this to be anything other what she had stated it was.

(Meaning: not a date.)

“Live music?”

“I meant--”

Karolina ignores her, picking a booth near the back and leaving Nico there before coming back with two beers.

“Karolina why are we here?” she asks again, as soon as Karolina settles down, with an urgency she shouldn’t be feeling- she doesn’t know if it’s because she’s afraid this could mean something, or because she wants this to mean something.

Karolina just shrugs, like there’s nothing to what they’re doing, and Nico ignores the rock she feels like she’s just swallowed that tastes too much like disappointment. “I just like spending time with you. And you... puzzle me I guess.”

She ignores the spike of something that _that_ elicits.

“Not many people manage to do that, do they?”

“No,” Karolina says, taking a slow sip of her beer, eyes sparkling with amusement and something Nico can’t quite place, “You must be special.”

(God, if it feels like a date.)

But before their conversation can continue in what will probably end up in a half-assed declaration of… care, devotion? She doesn’t know. But before they can do that, a guy comes at their table interrupting them.

“Hey, couldn’t help but notice you ladies were here alone.”

Nico barely spares him a glance, hoping the lack of eye contact would deter him away. When that doesn’t work, she sends him her best glare. To the guy’s credit, that hardly deters him more.

“We're two people,” she drawls slowly as if she was talking to a child, “Hardly alone.”

“Well, don’t you want to have an addiction to your group?”

“No, thanks,” Nico tries again, shoulders slumping with the realization they’re not going to shake him off easily.

The guy smiles down at them anyway, his grin crooked and creepy enough it makes Nico’s skin literally crawl. “I’m telling ya, you shouldn’t just let me walk away. You won’t find a guy like _me_ everywhere.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“I'm a lesbian, so I don’t think I’ll even try,” Karolina says at the same time, with such panache it makes Nico laugh. The guy apparently doesn’t find Karolina as hilarious as Nico, though, because it just makes his grin turn sour.

“And you? You a dyke, too?” he says spitting out the slur and directing his leer at her now, more aggressive in his stance and Nico had never wished more than now that she was a bit burlier than she actually is- or maybe just not as short- as she stands toes to toes with him.

“Oh, wow. I'm actually bi, but guys like you aren’t my type.”

The dude puffs his chest- and _God_ , Nico wants to punch him in the face. “Guys like me?”

“Yeah, rude, ignorant…” she trails off, looking him up and down with cold eyes, “And to be honest a broken nose just doesn’t cut it for me.”

That makes the guy pause, freezing his leer into a confused frown. “What broken nose?”

Nico just smiles, and that manages to piss him off further, she'd guess, since he doesn’t back down from her glare and puts a hand on her arm instead, and that's. Perfect. She doesn’t like dealing with all the trouble that comes with throwing the first punch, but self-defence she can do. Self-defence is right about her speed.

“Let go of her!” Karolina’s up on her feet in the seconds it takes Nico to make her move.

“This one,” she says, and she punches him square in the face. 

He goes down in a flash, blood erupting from his nose and dirtying Nico’s knuckles- and maybe what they say about big ones is right because he does make a lot of noise on his way there.

Nico stands over him for a bit, has half a mind to kick him for good measure, when Karolina slips a hand in one of hers and tugs her away and out of the bar. 

Nico hears the sound of multiple feet hitting the ground and finds herself thinking that, hey, maybe they should run, so she grips Karolina’s hand tight in hers and they bolt away until the bar is so far out of sight Nico struggles to see the neon light of the sign.

She leads them both inside the maze of cross streets, only stopping when she can’t hear the guy’s friends chasing them.

Nico collapses against a wall, hands going to her face, adrenaline still coursing through her veins and pumping blood flowing in her ears so loud she almost can’t hear Karolina when she speaks. 

“So, I don’t think we can go into that bar anymore.”

“Yeah,” Nico sighs, but she can still feel a crazed grin on her face, “Sorry.”

“Don't apologize. That was so worth it.”

“He was a prick.”

“You're my hero,” Karolina jokes, taking her hand in hers. Nico can’t help her wince as Karolina's fingers brush against her bruised knuckles.

“Shit,” Karolina lifts her hand to her eyes, whistling quietly at her bloody knuckles, “You really got him good, uh? Hot.”

“Told you I wasn’t a fan of sharing.”

“Hot,” Karolina says again before her eyes turn soft, clearer. She kisses Nico’s knuckles one by one, mouth lingering when she’s done. “You should be more careful, you weren’t built for fighting.”

Nico’s eyes flicker to Karolina’s mouth, still pressed on the back of her hand. She wants to lift them to her own, she wants… she just wants. With Karolina, it’s a constant, not a motion, not a feeling, not an action. Just a constant state of being. And it’s dangerous.

“I-- uh, anyway,” Nico stumbles out of the alleyway they had found refuge in, “I think we lost them.”

Karolina follows her, looking around them with a frown. “I think we’re just lost.”

“You’re feeling philosophical tonight?”

“No, I meant literally. I have no idea where we are,” Karolina says, before checking her phone with a frustrated sigh, “ _And_ my phone just died.”

Nico’s hand flies to her pocket- more than a little relieved she’s had the presence of mind to grab it in their escape. “Mine is on the verge of dying, too,” she checks the GPS, and- “Oh, wait. We’re near Palisades Park.”

“What--”

“It’s this park near the pier,” she interrupts her, and when Karolina just keeps on staring, she shrugs, “I used to live around here.”

“Lead the way, then.”

Nico takes her hand and ignores the way Karolina’s fingers lace through hers thoughtlessly.

She leads Karolina around familiar streets until Nico can smell the ocean and see the lines of palm trees that line the park, until Nico can see the locked gate.

“It’s closed,” she says, and she can’t keep some of her disappointment from her voice.

“Is it though?” Karolina asks, and Nico finds she really doesn’t like the twinkle in her eyes.

And Karolina’s reckless.

Nico knows that by now- between the motorbike, the tattoos, the constant flirting, Nico should have pieced it together way earlier- but she hadn’t realized exactly _how_ reckless.

“What are you doing?” Nico asks as Karolina makes her way to the fence.

“We're twenty-three! Don’t you want to make some mistakes?”

“I don’t want to get arrested for trespassing!”

“Live a little!” Karolina’s laugh is dangerously captivating as she turns around to Nico, opening her arms with a flare.

With Karolina’s grinning face staring at her, Nico almost agrees. 

Almost.

“No thanks. Karolina. Karolina!”

But it's too late, Karolina's climbing over the fence with a grace that shouldn’t belong to someone who Nico had seen fall on her face too many times to count. 

Karolina lands steady on her feet, turning to Nico with a crazed grin on her lips and a spark in her eyes that leave Nico breathless.

Still.

“Yeah,” Nico presses her lips together before making a smacking sound, “I am not doing that.”

Karolina puts hand over hers, through the links in the fence, before pouting. And, really, that’s _so_ not fair.

She sighs, takes a few steps back, before more or less vaulting over the fence suddenly very, very glad working at the shop had kept her in a pretty good shape- because she may not be as muscular as Karolina, but she’s still lean, still strong- and it’s with great pride that Nico notices how Karolina looks at her at that moment, all blown pupils and flushed cheeks. 

The fact that Nico could make _Karolina_ \- someone who looks like they had just come down from a Vogue photoshoot at every moment of the day- look at Nico like _that_ , well, it’s more than a little flattering, more than a little intoxicating.

But this game they’re playing- this game of casual sex that has only one rule in the playbook- is one of pretending, so Nico shrugs like it was nothing, like Karolina’s eyes on her meant nothing, like Karolina meant nothing to her.

(It feels less and less like the truth.)

“Okay. Now what?”

Karolina shrugs, flopping down on the dew-wet grass before tapping the place next to her, and this all feels much too romantic and intimate for two people who swear up and down feelings aren’t a thing they’re good at. 

Nico complies anyway, laying down beside Karolina without a word, Karolina interlacing their fingers seamlessly.

But it’s _fine_ on Nico’s part, at least for the moment, because it’s not like she feels anything other than physical attraction for Karolina- and _that’s_ justified because Karolina does kind of look like a real-life Disney princess who dressed like a cross between Kristen Stewart and a farmer market hippie.

(It’s a very specific kind of type to be into, Nico knows that, but Karolina makes it work extraordinarily easily.)

“What now?” she asks again because Nico’s bored and obviously not content just sharing a comfortable silence with Karolina while looking at the few stars L.A.’s sky offers. 

_Obviously_.

Karolina turns to her with a wicked smile, the streetlights’ glow making her look like a being from another galaxy, and Nico could spend years trying to describe what she feels, looking at her, and never come up with the right words, or the right feelings. 

She bites the inside of her cheek until she draws blood.

(Dangerous, and more than a little reckless.)

“We stargaze and tell each other our deepest secrets,” Karolina proposes, still smiling like life was a joke and only she knew the punchline.

Nico wants to hate it. 

She doesn’t.

“No, really.”

“Yes, really. C’ mon,” Karolina tugs at their joined hands, and Nico is reminded again- reckless- “Ask me something. Even something real.”

Nico smiles a cheeky grin- like she isn’t affected by the way Karolina’s eyes never leave hers, by the way her warm hand is linked with hers, by the way her lips look so, so soft. “Do you have _any_ pick-up lines that aren’t fifth grader’s games?”

“Nope,” Karolina grins back and Nico feels her will waver under the light of her full 100 watts smile.

“Does this count as my hoarded question, then?”

“Law school,” Karolina fakes coughs in her hand and Nico shoves her away half-heartedly but laughs anyway.

“Well, does it?”

Karolina pretends to think about it for a second, tapping her fingers against her chin like a total dork. “Nah. This one is free of charge.”

“How magnanimous of you,” Nico can’t help but drawl sarcastically. 

Karolina nods as if she agreed, and Nico resists the urge to shove her away again. “Thank you, I know.”

What a brat. 

Nico rolls her eyes but forgets any question she had ever meant to ask Karolina- and there are many, oh so many- because the sky chooses that moment to light Karolina up in the moonlight, and at that moment she glows like the brightest nebula, like the brightest stars.

Karolina just stares back.

“How does a girl like you end up a tattoo artist?” Nico asks in the end because it’s easy and something that has been hammering in her head since she’s started knowing more about Karolina.

A girl like her, who was sunshine on a beach day, who was kind and believed in the good things- not love, though- and at the same time, a girl that believed pain could be a gateway to something beautiful.

(Nico wants to know more, it’s never enough and there’s always more.)

Karolina’s smile freezes slightly, her hold on Nico’s hand slacking. Just when Nico is about to take the question back, she takes a deep breath, looking back up at the night sky.

“Okay,” Karolina says, and then again more determined, “Okay. So, when I was about seventeen, I found out something, something bad, so I ran away from home. And I wasn’t alone, I was with…”

Karolina shakes her head with a grimace. “Anyway, I always liked doodling on my skin, and I needed money and I found this parlour that took apprentices. I liked it, and it stuck I guess.”

 _That_ was _not_ the story Nico had been expecting.

That wasn’t in any way easy.

“Oh.”

It hits far closer to home than Nico wanted to acknowledge, between her own family situation and Tandy’s- _especially_ the running away part- and maybe that was what made Karolina seem so familiar like they had met already once upon a time and never forgotten it.

“Yeah,” Karolina sighs and it breaks Nico’s heart even more, “It’s kind of a lot.”

Nico entangles their fingers together again, Karolina squeezing her hand twice like a thank you. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“I’m still sorry the world hasn’t been kinder to you.”

Karolina’s head snaps to meet her eyes, eyebrows up in her forehead and mouth gaping open, and Nico wants nothing but make all of this awkwardness to go away. So, she turns away- a stupid joke out of her mouth before she can think better of it. 

“Between the two of us, though, I wouldn’t have thought you’d be the edgier one, no offense.”

“Someone must have told you what assuming makes of you.”

“Nope. Never got around to that, I guess.”

Karolina rolls her eyes, and Nico laughs.

When Karolina finally walks Nico home, she leaves her without even a small kiss and Nico doesn’t realize it until she’s already under the safety of her bed covers.

They had hung out, as friends. 

(Or as close to friends as Nico could ever get to Karolina because Karolina feels a thousand miles away from her even as she kisses Nico like she’s the only girl she has ever wanted, even as she trembles naked under Nico gasping for breath.)

And Nico finds, she’s not nearly as bothered by the fact as she should probably be. She doesn’t want to pretend she doesn’t like having Karolina as a friend- and if sometimes, okay, most times, they fall in bed too, well, that’s just another benefit.

As long as she doesn’t start liking her as anything more.

**

It starts with Nico having a bad day.

(The nursery she usually orders from is on holiday, and she had to haggle with her other supplier who is if Nico’s being frank quite an asshole.)

It starts with Nico having a really bad day.

(Then the grumpy old lady who lives over her apartment had managed to flood her bathroom, and consequentially, Nico’s bedroom while looking extremely unapologetic about it.)

It starts with Nico having a really, really bad day and being about ready to just declare defeat and go sleep forever.

Only she has no bed to lay on. 

(Because of a grumpy old lady with too many cats and probably too many years on her shoulder to still be alive who had flooded Nico’s bedroom while giving her cats a bath. Which doesn’t help dispute Tandy’s theory she’s actually a crazy scientist who does experiments on said cats.)

Alex, of course, is no help at all, as he is currently out of town to go to a weird geek convention Nico doesn’t ever want to know anything about. So, she’s stuck with her problems until he comes back. Which sucks.

Tandy is also MIA in that way she sometimes is that makes Nico think she’s either at her mother’s trying to put her back together or at Tyrone’s escaping her mother and anyone that made her think of her father.

Something which Nico can relate a bit too much to if she’s being honest.

In any way, Nico’s alone and down a bed for the next foreseeable future.

Her eyes fly to the vase of plumerias she has taken to put on the counter near the register- for no reason at all, really, and Tandy can go shove it- and maybe there is a way to make it all suck less.

She takes a deep breath and greets her next costumer, now not dreading the end of her day nearly as much.

The wind is picking up when Nico finally makes it out of her shop, mood worsening as her scarf almost flies away from her neck. She hugs it to her body and makes the short track to Karolina’s shop.

She slips into the parlour, hands rubbing together to restore the warmth the cold air had robbed from them. When she looks up, the first thing she sees is Karolina’s face beaming at her from behind a desk.

“Hey. What are you doing here?”

“You’re always at my shop,” Nico shrugs exuding faux carelessness, like she hadn't just half walked half ran there, “Figured I’d return the favour.”

Karolina laughs and the guy currently being tattooed by a girl with curly dark brown hair topped by a pink hat- that’s probably Gert’s sister, Molly, if she goes by Karolina’s description - turns towards her at the noise, watching Karolina with moony eyes.

(Not that Nico blames him much, Karolina’s laugh could make stones turn her way.)

(Okay, she blames him a little. Sue her.)

“If you’re busy I could come by later?” Nico says the realization that just because the day is over for her it doesn’t mean Karolina’s is, hitting her as soon as she sees her still drawing at her desk. She should have guessed that most of Karolina’s costumers would probably come a bit later than when Nico’s own did.

Karolina stands up quickly from the desk, closing the sketchbook in front of her with a grin. “No, no. Nope. Not busy at all. I was just about to--”

“Oh, great! I wanted--” Nico stops, cheeks aflame, “I’m sorry I interrupted you.”

“Get a room!” Molly bellows from where she’s still tattooing moony-eyes dude, who lets out a small moan that Molly quickly chastises with a, “Oh don’t be a baby, it’s almost done.”

Karolina laughs, but her cheeks are a bit red. “You spend too much time with Gert.”

“She’s my _sister_!”

“Sure, whatever. Close up when you’re done please,” Karolina says to Molly before turning to Nico with a brilliant smile and taking her hand, “C’ mon I want to show you something.”

“Wait, K!” Molly calls as they approach the threshold.

“What?”

Molly’s grin resembles her sister’s too much in Nico’s opinion, especially the way her eyes glint with mischief- she feels the strangest sort of nostalgia at the thought of sisterly resemblances and she feels like crying, and she feels like laughing.

She snaps back into the conversation just as Karolina’s cheeks go pinker and pinker.

“Wait, what?”

“Mistletoe,” Molly says again, grin back in full force, “Them the rules, sorry.”

“Are you though?”

“It’s not even December, yet,” Nico finds herself lightly protesting, and she doesn’t know why this potential kiss feels like such a big deal.

 _Maybe because mistletoe,_ some part of Nico’s brain supplies _, signifies love and affection; underneath it, a place for first kisses and first loves._

“Thanksgiving has passed. Christmas’ time now,” Karolina recites dutifully before Molly can like it’s the crux of some argument they’ve been having for years.

“Why do you even have a mistletoe pinned over a back door?”

“The drama,” Karolina deadpans and Nico stifles a giggle.

“So?” Molly jokes- and right, the dude was still there, too, creepy- “We’re waiting.”

“Molly…” Karolina warns just as Nico steps on her tiptoes and lands a small kiss to the corner of Karolina’s mouth. Nico didn’t think Karolina could turn even pinker, but she does just that, cheeks almost glowing.

“Happy?”

“Extremely,” Molly waves her hand dismissively, “You can go now.”

Karolina, still bright cheeked, takes a blanket from one of the tattooing chairs and leads her through a door near the back of the shop seemingly running on auto-pilot, before making her climb a steep set of stairs until they’re standing on the roof of the building.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Nico says when Karolina just stands there, blanket folded in her arms, “Why are we here?”

Karolina smiles down at her enigmatically. “Just wait.”

“For what?”

“There's this moment when everything turns gold, have you ever noticed it?” Karolina sits on the roof’s ledge, a faraway look in her eyes, wrapping the blanket around herself like a cape, “It's right before it gets dark. I like watching it from up here, it clears my head. It's only a few minutes, but it's... it's beautiful.”

They wait in silence for another few minutes, and then Nico gets exactly what Karolina was trying to describe.

It's that light just before dusk, not like the bright sunshine that wakes you just before your alarm goes off. Not the vivid red of those summer sunsets in movies, but that soft sunlight that lights up the whole room in orangey yellows that make the whole world glow.

“It really is,” Nico whispers, eyes trained on the girl beside her.

“You're not even looking.”

Nico doesn’t answer her, she doesn’t think she could, but she does turn her eyes to the sparkling buildings in front of her.

“There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things, don’t you think?”

But no, Nico can’t think about it. She can’t, because if she did… And Nico guesses she could crack a joke now, diffuse the tension building up around them, but she finds she doesn’t want to. 

She just wants to sit in silence with Karolina and watch the sun slowly and completely disappear from the horizon on an ordinary Thursday night.

So, she sits down next to her, and, when Karolina turns her way, she can’t help but lean into her, stealing a kiss while the wind howled all around them. Karolina lifts the blanket over the two of them, and everything is warmth.

“So, what’s up?” Karolina asks once the sun has completely disappeared behind the horizon. Nico’s brain takes a second to remember _why_ she had searched for Karolina exactly, still fogged by the kiss.

“If I have to sell one more tiny Christmas’ tree or another single poinsettia to some idiot who thinks that Christmas’ miracles are the best way to get their exes back I might quit,” Nico starts, because she knows it will make Karolina laugh- which she does, the sound lifting Nico’s sour mood instantly- “And also, I need to ask you for a favour.”

Karolina looks at her, her eyes bright and oh so blue, and Nico lets herself have this one thing, even if she shouldn’t.

Karolina helps her. 

Of course, she does. Nico was asking for a place to stay for the night, not for her hand in marriage. Still, she could have just as easily said no. 

This is so stupid, why didn’t she just sleep in Tandy’s room or something? Karolina smiles, saying some dumb joke about flooded bathrooms and fun times, and Nico knows why.

Karolina leads her through her steadily growing familiar apartment- even if the hallway does look a little different without the trail of clothes they usually leave behind. When she opens her bedroom’s door, though Nico hesitates.

And it's not like they've never shared a bed before- beyond having sex on it, she means- because they had. 

(Seven times.) 

(Nico hadn’t been counting, but yeah, seven times.) 

But they have somehow always been after having some sort of sexual encounter and it was way too late for Karolina or Nico to head home- but never just because. Or as just because as water falling onto her favourite dresser is.

“You want some pyjamas?” Karolina asks, completely bulldozing over Nico’s mental arguments like it’s nothing.

“I'm fine,” Nico says, already shimming off her dark blue jeans. Her shirt is big enough on her that it falls to her mid-thighs and that’s hardly scandalous for sharing a bed with someone you’re naked on the regulars with.

“Ok. I usually sleep in my underwear,” Karolina continues, turning towards her, her cheeks already flushed as she continues to ramble, “Like without a shirt. Unless it’d make you uncomfortable?”

“I've had my tongue inside you,” Nico reminds her with a shrug.

Karolina blushes an even deeper shade of red, turning back around with a huff. “You can be less crass about it.”

“How can you be the same person who has made me come in the shower three times before work yesterday?” Nico wonders out loud, sitting onto her side of the bed with a grin.

“Stop teasing me or you'll never have that privilege again.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes, my beloved,” Nico says, putting on a posh accent to make Karolina laugh. Karolina does not laugh. Karolina freezes in her tracks as if Nico had struck her. She laughs awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck. “It was a joke. Sorry. Not funny?”

Karolina shakes her head, smiles returning easy as rain. “You just caught me off guard. Sorry.”

She climbs into bed without another word, and Nico knows she’s profoundly fucked up. She desperately wants to make it less awkward. 

She just doesn’t know how.

Apparently, she doesn’t need to, because Karolina does it herself, kissing her softly once. “I really am sorry.”

Nico opens her mouth and then closes it, not even trying to speak because Karolina has dipped her head and pressed their lips together again, like another apology.

If only Nico knew what she was apologizing for.

Because Karolina is an open book- she'll say so herself, smiling wide and unharmful and yet still sharp underneath it- and it had taken Nico a bit before she had figured out that that doesn’t mean she's easy to learn, to pick apart piece to piece until she can understand how the engine works.

She's an open book alright, only Nico doesn’t know where to turn the pages, only she's so bright you can't see her clearly- can barely make out the shape of her without burning your eyes against her blazing silhouette- only Karolina is not an open book at all if all the pages she manages to turn are carefully redacted in black sharpie.

It's like she can never learning anything about her asides from what is presented, what is freely offered, and Nico is fine with it. 

Nico should be fine with it.

And sometimes Karolina surprises her with a sliver of truth, a small footnote, and Nico can’t help but want more and more and more.

It's quiet as they lay half-asleep on Karolina’s bed, and Nico wants nothing more than bask in this quiet and wash away her bad day in Karolina’s warmth. Nico lays on her side, drawing lazy shapes against Karolina's naked back. 

It's peaceful and a little intimate and unlike every other interaction they’ve had when one of them had their shirt off.

At first, her hands follow the slope of her tattoos, the painted galaxies on her upper back, a small black script written in some language Nico almost recognizes on her lower.

Then it's shapes, disconnected dots that give form to triangles and circles and spirals.

Then it's words, Karolina's name, her own, she writes it first in English, then in kanjis- the script so familiar still under her fingertips- then she continues with random words in Japanese until she can't remember any more words and it turns to spirals again, leaving Nico wishing she could remember some more of her parent’s teachings beyond stilted sentences she doesn’t get to use anymore. 

Then it's back to tracing her tattoos, and when Karolina shifts slightly, Nico drops a kiss to the back of her neck, intimate in a way they never are outside of a bedroom door- but she guesses they are behind a bedroom door now, so she’s fine.

“What does this one mean?” she asks, feather-light fingers brushing the script on her lower back again. 

(Karolina is always so soft, under Nico’s touch. So soft sometimes Nico forgets the jaded edges she hides inside.)

“It’s Hebrew. For beloved.”

Nico hums- and there’s the reason for the awkwardness, then- as she traces the script again, when Karolina continues, “I was engaged once.”

Nico stills her hand and Karolina sits up on the bed, not quite facing her but looking straight ahead with a lost look on her face. Nico takes her hand and Karolina almost jolts out of the bed entirely. 

She moves to take her hand back, but Karolina’s comes to rest on hers just as quickly.

“Their name was Xavin,” she starts, small and quiet in every way Karolina never was, “They were blunt and rash and had literally zero social skills. They didn’t get jokes, but I tried to make them laugh, anyway.”

Karolina shakes her head, and Nico scoots closer.

“We met kind of through our parents, and I didn’t like them at first because of that,” Karolina pauses, a small smile clearing her face, but it’s bittersweet- “And then I loved them.”

“What happened?”

Karolina turns to her, her eyes clear of tears and so close to steel Nico almost doesn’t see the cracks, the chips deep beneath the surface. “They're gone.”

“I'm sorry.”

It comes out as a whisper as if by quietening the words down they would end up being less painfully overused, less unserviceable.

Karolina sighs and settles back onto the bed, pulling the covers up almost to her nose, a sliver of blue-grey eyes still on Nico, watching. “It is what it is.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Nico whispers, but if Karolina hears her she doesn’t let it show, and Nico feels like a child whispering a ‘not fair’ under their breath when their parents chastise them.

(And Nico doesn’t know what to do, because how do you stop somebody from hurting?)

“I had a sister.”

(By blurting out your own hurting apparently.)

Karolina sits back up in a flash, eyes wide in shock but dry. “What?”

“I had a sister. She died when I was a freshman in college. There was no warning, no anything… that’s why I dropped out. My parents and I are not on speaking terms anymore. I… you keep asking about why flowers--”

“You don’t need to tell me,” Karolina rushes to stop her, shoving the covers off of her body so fast, they fall out of the bed, too.

“I know. I want to.”

Karolina’s voice is as soft as her eyes, as gentle as her hands slowly tracing the lines of Nico’s arms. “Nico…”

“So, yeah. My family was- is- _really_ well off. So I took the money they sent me for my college tuition and opened the shop.” 

Nico’s shoulders shake and oh no, is she crying? It feels like she’s crying. Please, she can’t be crying, not now. 

“And A-- Amy loved flowers. I don’t know. I just fell into it. You asked, but I don’t. I don’t--”

Karolina opens her arms and Nico falls in them.

“I didn’t want to monopolize the conversation, I swear. Or make you feel sorry for me. I just…”

“I know,” Karolina leaves a soft kiss to her hair, “I know. You just know this kind of hurting, too.”

Nico nods in her shoulder because she doesn’t think anything coherent can come out of her mouth right about now, nothing but shaky breaths and sobs. 

It’s the first time in years she had to explain Amy to someone. 

It’s the first time in years she had felt so light after. 

Karolina doesn’t do nothing else but holding her as she shakes, and Nico doesn’t want to name the feeling thumping against her chest yet, but she knows it’s nothing good.

So, instead of thinking about it, she changes the subject. “You know, I didn’t see many of the flowers I sold you here. Did you murder them all already?”

Karolina lets out a small watery laugh. “No, actually. There are some at the shop, I don’t know if you noticed them. Others I sold with the tattoos, like a bonus for a small extra.”

“That’s not bad,” Nico yawns, suddenly spent from the bad day and the emotional discharge, “That’s actually very smart.”

“We could do a partnership or something.”

“Tell me more about it in the morning, tattoo tycoon.”

“Shut up,” Karolina says, then softer, “Goodnight, Nico.”

“Goodnight, Karrie.”

She thinks she sees Karolina smile at the nickname, but it’s dark, and Nico’s eyes close soon after anyway.

**

Since that night things with Karolina have been different. More open in a way, less in others.

Nico likes it, probably more than it’s safe.

Other than that, though, things have stayed painfully the same. They still hung out, still kissed, still fucked. If only Nico could piece together why that _bothers_ her so much. But Nico can’t. She just can’t think about it.

Maybe that’s why she’s on her small balcony- or well, it’s a thin spot on her shop’s fire escape, but there are flowers and a beach chair so same thing, right? - in the middle of winter in the middle of the night with no jacket on and no blanket. Not a very smart move on her part, she’ll admit it, but she likes coming up here to think.

It’s kind of weird, now that Nico thinks about it, how both her and Karolina’s favourite thinking spots- their favourite places- are high places.

Liminal spaces.

Nico likes how everything looks _small_ in comparison, but not in that bad, negative way L.A. usually makes people feel small- more like how the yellow streetlights, the windows, all looked like stars in the black night, only closer, only warmer. 

And _that_ feels good against Nico’s skin, like a promise, like a long-forgotten hug.

She closes her eyes and just lets herself be.

Unfortunately, as many things do, peace never lasts long.

(If there was any peace in Nico’s mind to begin with, with all these… thoughts of Karolina knotted together into a mess of things that leaves Nico’s brain scrambled.)

She hears two loud clangs, and a voice says, “Falling star, make a wish,” before sitting down beside her.

Nico keeps her eyes closed, before opening them again with an exaggerated frown. “It didn’t work...”

“How do you know?”

“You're still here.”

Alex rolls his eyes, letting out a sarcastic laugh. “Funny.”

“Yeah, I thought so too,” Nico says, letting out a laugh of her own, “How are you up here? I thought I closed the door.” 

“You do know you’re on the fire escape, right?”

“So, you just followed me up here?” Nico presses her lips together, shaking her head, “Creepy.”

“Your door was closed,” Alex shrugs like it was any sort of justification.

“That makes it creepier, I hope you know that,” Nico deadpans, dodging Alex’s poor attempt at a shove, “So, how was your nerd vacation?”

“It was not a nerd vacation,” Alex protests, and it’s been so long since Nico had given him shit about his nerdy habits a smug grin blooms on her face, and she just has to nod, before she says, “You stayed at that new Star Wars hotel, right?”

Alex looks away and Nico knows she’s got him there.

“I heard of your little…” Alex changes subject quickly, making a weird gesture with his hand that makes Nico smile, “Rendezvous to Snapdragon Girl’s house the other day.”

And there it is. She should have known Alex would use Karolina as ammunition to retaliate as soon as she had spoken, only she didn't think he'd be so blunt about it. Or that he'd know about that night at all. 

(Tandy, then, probably.)

“Why do you gotta call her that?” Nico asks, trying to stall this particular conversation for as long as she can.

“Because I forgot her name,” Alex says, matter-of-factly, smirking like the smug bastard he could be, “Also, Tandy gave me ten bucks to keep doing it.”

(Goddammit Tandy.)

“Since when do you two hang out solo?”

She can almost feel Alex preen with pride. “I’ve grown on her.”

Of course, he did. He always did.

“Whatever. You know her name, use it and stop being annoying.”

Alex’s smirk grows wider, leaning right into her face, just asking to be punched. “Maybe I just like Snapdragon Girl better.”

“Maybe you should stop being so annoying while we’re on the edge of a fire escape,” Nico quips, letting her smile turn vicious.

Alex visibly recoils from her, and a laugh escapes from Nico’s lips without her meaning to. “Jeez, touchy today aren’t we?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay,” Alex says, before not doing just that, “But you have to admit you like her too much for this to be a casual thing.”

Nico’s pretty sure she’d heard right, but she wants to give Alex the option to reiterate- “Excuse me?”

“I’m an observant guy. And it’s not like it’s hard to see, anyway. Lately, you’re always with her, and when you’re not, you’re thinking about her.”

“I do not!”

“Sure,” Alex drawls so annoyingly Nico just has to punch his shoulder, “Ow, okay! Shutting up now.”

But the damage had been done, because now Alex has brought thoughts of Karolina back into Nico’s brain, thoughts of hidden meanings and people that are more than just pretty girls with pretty smiles that make Nico’s stomach churn, and all the peace of mind she had achieved had fled through the window. 

Literally.

Karolina’s been on her mind like a drug, and Nico feels so weird and stupid, and it feels odd, how much she cares, because all she’s ever know since Amy had been gone was how to hold her own, but now all she wants to do is hold _her_. 

Which has to mean something, Nico isn’t so dumb or oblivious to not know that. 

The thing is, Nico doesn’t know exactly what it means- or even why. Why she thinks of her every minute of every day, why she’s so desperate to hear her laugh, why, when she does, she struggles to breathe. 

(Only that's a lie because she knows why. She’s pretty sure she knows why.)

She shakes her head because she will not go there. She will not. She stands up in a flash and marches back down the fire escape, Alex scrambling after her. She shakes her head again, trying not to think about Karolina’s eyes, or her lips or her hands.

“Nico! Wait up!”

She doesn't want to think about how Nico wants to know more, how she hungers for more, how she longs for more. More, more, more. 

Every road, every path leads back to Karolina. 

Because it’s in the echoes in between her heartbeats, it’s in the lost words Nico can never utter when they lay together, it’s in the forgotten dreams she wakes up from Nico always tries to hold on to.

It’s in all the ways Nico loves her.

Oh God, she _loves_ her.

She stops dead in her tracks, Alex smashing against her with a startled noise almost sending them both sprawling down the fire escape.

“Hey! What's--” Alex starts, the words stopping the moment he sees her face. Nico thinks he'd have ended the sentence with 'your problem', or something along the lines, but she doesn’t want to think about that.

Or maybe she does, because the realization she had just come to is too startling and dazzling and altogether life-changing to think about while you're walking with your best friend down a flight of stairs.

Alex keeps on looking at her, his face going through several shades of concern until he decides that shaking her slightly will bring her out of her self-induced panic.

“Hey!” Alex shakes her some more, and Nico wants to shove him in return but she can't because... Alex frowns at her, “What the hell has gotten into you?”

“I'm in love with her,” is all Nico can whisper, mind still running a thousand miles an hour.

“With whom?”

“Your mother,” she snaps, finally slapping his hands away, “Who do you think dumbass?”

“I thought you guys were _casual_ ,” Alex says, and Nico doesn’t appreciate his tone, not one bit.

“We are,” Nico’s hands are shaking, she curls them into fists, “That’s kind of the problem. What am I going to do now?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alex says, a hand on his chin, stroking it lightly with a pensive face, and Nico wants to hit him because it’s easier than actually dealing with this shit, “Oh, yeah! Maybe tell her?”

And Alex doesn’t get it _at all._

“It's not that easy.”

Alex takes her hand in his theatrically. “Sure, it is. You walk up to her and say: 'Karolina, my love for you burns with the intensity of a thousand suns’ and then ask her on a date.”

“Okay first, personal boundaries. Second, real people don’t talk like that.”

“Sure they do. I just did.”

“Oh my God, _how_ were we together?” she shouts as she storms out, leaving a gaping Alex behind. 

Not for long, as he runs down the fire escape to catch up- and if he falls and splits his head open Nico will not be the one bringing him to the hospital.

(Only that’s another lie.)

“C’ mon Nico, wait up!”

Nico doesn’t bother turning his way or stopping, slipping into the back entrance that leads to her apartment. “I don’t want to talk about this, Alex.”

“Wow, she really did a number on you, didn’t she? Well, you can’t just flee to Monteriggioni and call it a day.”

That actually gives Nico pause, because _what?_

“I know that you know I didn’t understand a thing of that.”

“What I meant is,” Alex grabs her arm, effectively bringing her to a stop, “You can’t just run away from this.”

“I’m not good at taking care of people. Let’s face it, I’m just no good at caring for people.”

“Nico,” Alex says her name so softly Nico almost bursts into tears, “You have to know that’s not true.”

“Do I?” she almost shouts in his face- and she hates the fact tears are burning behind her eyelids, she hates the fact she cares so much, she hates the fact he is right.

Alex hugs her to his chest in one swift move, crashing his body into hers and Nico remembers a time when they used to fit together hiding her face into his neck. “Yes, because all you’ve ever done was care. Even if it hurt.”

“I’m still bad at it,” Nico mumbles against his skin because she _was_.

“No, you’re not. Because if you were, do you think Tandy would have stuck around?” Alex asks, and Nico snorts by the surprise of it.

“I’m serious. Like, me? You’re family. I was ride or die from the start, you know that. But Tandy? She needed more convincing.”

She feels an instant and overpowering surge of affection towards Alex. She forgets sometimes how much she loves him; how much she values their friendship. It's good, she thinks, to be reminded from time to time.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now let me into your apartment I’m so cold my toes will fall off.”

Nico shakes her head but opens the door anyway, letting him inside.

And while Nico may not know what being in love with Karolina entails for her future yet, she knows that if she ever voices her feelings everything will change, so Nico’s pretty sure she’s going to keep it to herself for the time being.

(She can’t help the silver sliver of hope that seeps through the cracks into her armour, though.)

**

Days pass, then weeks, then it’s a month into Nico’s realization and she still hasn’t said nothing to Karolina. 

She’d meant to, alright? 

Only it’s way scarier than Nico feels it should be, to open up again to someone- also there’s this nagging doubt eating away some part of Nico’s brain, about how they had agreed at a casual thing, about how Karolina still didn’t seem quite over Xavin, about how sure, they worked together in bed, but did they have what it took to actually _be_ together?

So, Nico hadn't spoken a word about her feelings with Karolina, and Karolina hadn't either. Why should she? Karolina seems content just by sharing skin with Nico and Nico should be too.

Things only seemed to change when other people butt their heads in.

(Which should probably worry Nico, if she ever actually comes around to realize it.)

One day, that person is Tandy.

Karolina comes into the shop just when Nico is about to either set it all on fire or jump out of her balcony- or maybe the roof- or just _stop_ and lay still on the floor for a long, long while. If she has to cut another white ribbon, she may cut a bitch.

Karolina slips into the back, looking around all the mess and then at Nico like she’s a ticking bomb. “What’s going on?”

“It’s almost wedding season,” Tandy explains, intent on writing down the many phone orders- and some days Nico really, really loves and appreciates her as a friend and human being- “White dresses, flowers… the whole shtick. People are already planning. Why? You want in, Snapdragon Girl?”

And someday Tandy won’t make her question that love with her next sentence.

Karolina only looks more confused, though. “I’m sorry what season? And what did you call me?”

“Y’know, like May to June, September to October…” Nico rushes to say before Tandy can make things worse by telling Karolina about what that stupid nickname meant, “When the weather is nicer, and people decide that getting married isn’t such a terrible idea after all.”

“Oh,” Karolina breathes out and Nico remembers all of the sudden Xavin, and the promise they could never fulfil.

“What would you know about weddings, Hot Topic?” Tandy makes a crack at her the second she sees Karolina’s carefully blank face, shifting the attention on Nico and for once she’s not annoyed at her, but grateful.

“Less than you for sure,” Nico says, slipping into her role seamlessly, “You tied the knot yet with Ty?”

“Shut up,” Tandy grumbles, but Nico knows it’s all pretend as she storms in the front of the shop leaving Karolina and Nico alone in the back and giving them a chance to talk- Tandy is way smarter than she gets the credit for, Nico thinks.

Karolina watches her go with a puzzled but amused smile. “Well, she’s fun.”

“Don’t let her hear that she will never shut up about it.”

“Does she have a nickname for everyone?”

“Yeah, it’s so annoying. She has like ten different ones for me and Ty, for some reason,” at Karolina’s blank look she explains, “Her best friend. And kind of boyfriend, but don’t say that part near her.”

Karolina nods like she knows exactly what Nico meant from experience. “Why am I Snapdragon Girl, then? It doesn’t exactly roll off your tongue.”

Nico shrugs, trying to play it cool. By the way Karolina looks at her, she’s certain it didn’t work. “Who knows.”

“I think you do.”

“Mhm,” she hums, shrugging her shoulders with her best innocent smile.

“Cute,” Karolina laughs, “But alright, keep your secrets.”

Nico laughs with her and keeps tying bundles of flowers together.

“Do you ever think of marriage, like, for yourself?” Karolina asks then, out of the blue and all at once, like her innocent question wasn’t anything other than that- an innocent question. 

Nico knows better, her fingers straying from their work as she focuses her attention to Karolina.

“Do you?” Nico asks back because by now she has realized that Karolina reveals herself in her questions.

“I-- after Xavin I never saw myself close enough to anyone to even consider it. It's weird. They were my fiancé, they called me their betrothed, their beloved... it would be weird, I think, to call someone else mine.”

Karolina lets out a little disbelieving laugh- Nico doesn’t know whether she’s laughing at herself or at the world- before continuing.

“I never understood why people were so hellbent on calling something theirs until I had Xavin, and now I find myself thinking about it again. And I'm scared.”

And the fact Nico understands what Karolina means, scares her a little bit. What scares Nico more is why Karolina’s thinking about it again. 

(She thinks she knows.) 

(She hopes she knows.)

“Of what?” she asks instead, biting down any inappropriate declarations of love.

“Of tainting their memory,” Karolina says, rubbing her left hand, near her ring finger’s knuckles where three thin, deep purple lines run around it like a ring she could never take off, “With them, I felt like I finally belonged, you know? I thought--”

Nico’s eyes soften and she can’t help but come closer to her, sitting by her side placing one of her hands on her leg. “You know it’s not like that, right?”

“I don’t-- I don’t know,” Karolina’s voice comes out in a whisper, “I don’t know what to believe when it comes to them.”

“I know what you mean.”

Karolina’s blue eyes flash to hers, piercing her in place, and Nico feels naked under her gaze. “You do?”

“Yes. It’s like…” Nico swallows, but doesn’t turn away from her, holds her head high, “It’s like, you spend so much time looking for a meaning in all your tragedies that you forget from where you started.”

“And then it feels like you’re six feet under with them, and like you never knew them after all.”

“Yes,” Nico says, and Karolina’s hand lands on hers, fingers interlacing effortlessly.

“Don’t you ever just… want to find out the answer?”

Nico feels like nodding, before shaking her head, because- “There is no answer. You just have to live with it. You just have to live.”

Karolina doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Nico waits because if she had learnt anything from being friends with Tandy, it was to let people take their time when talking about stuff like this.

When Karolina speaks again, her voice is slow and devoid of any feelings. “I have been holding this grief for so long, what happens when I put it down?”

Nico doesn’t know the answer to that one- she has been wondering the same thing for the last six years- but she knows exactly what it is Karolina needs, so she scoots closer until their thighs are touching. 

After a second Karolina’s head comes to rest to her shoulder, and they stay like that, comforting each other without having to share another word.

(Or they try, jumping apart as soon as Tandy comes back around to the shop back.)

(She ignores the knowing look Tandy sends her, wishing desperately that by the time they’re alone again she’d have forgotten.)

**

Tandy does not forget.

It happens one afternoon when she finally comes back to her own apartment, Karolina’s taste still on her lips like the hot chocolate they had for breakfast.

Nico collapses on the couch with a dreamy sigh she’ll forever deny has ever escaped her lips. She buries her smile into the pillows, and nothing, nothing could spoil this day for her. 

Tandy plumps down next to her, sinking into the plush of the sofa, and Nico had spoken too soon once again. “So… I have been talking to Alex.”

“I still don’t like the fact you two actually like each other now.”

“He grows on you.”

“I know. What a leech.”

Tandy laughs and Nico knows there was a time where those laughs didn’t come as easy to Tandy’s lips and she suddenly feels grateful for Tyrone Johnson. She may not say it much, or at all at least out loud, but she’s grateful for Tandy too.

“Anyway, I talked to Alex and he may have mentioned a sudden realization of yours.”

It takes a second for Nico to piece together what Tandy’s talking about, but when she does she feels the sudden urge to jump out of the window. She’d rather take her chances with gravity than with the way Tandy’s smirking right now. 

(She should have known. Tandy doesn’t forget. Tandy was a born strategist. She knew just when and how to strike true.)

And while this would have come up one way or another, she can’t help but blame Alex a little bit. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Don’t blame him too much,” Tandy says like she had read Nico’s mind, “You know I have ways to get what I want.”

“I don’t think he made you work for it much, though.”

Tandy’s smile says it all. “Anyways, he told me about your realization that has happened what? A month or so ago?”

“And?”

“And you realize you’re in love with Snapdragon Girl and just… keep on sleeping with her anyway not saying _anything_?” Tandy looks at her like she was truly the dumbest person she had ever seen- and Nico isn’t insecure of her intelligence but for a second she questions whether Tandy was right.

“Well, when you say it like _that_ it sounds stupid.”

Tandy shakes her head and Nico feels like a child, a very emotionally immature one, and it hits twice as hard since it’s Tandy- Tandy, whose relationship with Tyrone is so complicated Nico thinks they’d need five years just to untangle it all. 

“So why haven’t you done anything about it?”

Nico shrugs her shoulders. Tandy fixes her with a look that were Nico any other person other than herself, she’d probably have crumbled then and there. 

“You know why.”

The way Tandy’s own eyes darken for a second, she’s pretty sure Tandy knows why.

“Okay, no,” Tandy springs back up from the couch with a bounce, “We’re _so_ not doing this sober.”

By the time Nico blinks, she’s already back with a bottle of Jameson and two glasses. Nico is almost impressed.

“It’s not even eleven o'clock.”

“Judge less, drink more,” Tandy says, pouring generous helpings in both of the glasses. 

Nico takes one of them and clicks it against Tandy’s own. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, so. I’m going to tell it like I see it. You’re afraid of intimacy,” Tandy starts, and god, Nico knew Tandy hardly ever pulled her punches, but this was too much even for her, “And I get that. I do.”

“Do you?” Nico snaps icily because not even all the alcohol in the world could be enough for her to sit quietly while Tandy psychoanalysed her.

“Yes. I may not have a dead sister, but I have a dead abusive father that I idolized and a drunkard mother,” Tandy says matter-of-factly, and Nico is an asshole, “So, we could either keep comparing knives in the back or we can talk about this like the semi-responsible adults we are.”

“Well, you are so fond of pretending.”

(Nico was the worst kind of asshole.)

Tandy breathes in slowly, downing the rest of her drink like a shot. Nico does the same, the sting of the alcohol down her throat drowning the bitterness she feels inside. Tandy refills the glasses without a word.

“Sorry, that was uncalled for,” Nico says contrite and Tandy shrugs her shoulders, waving her apology off, “Please continue with the free therapy session.”

“My point is, I fucked up with Ty more times than I can count. But he’s still here. The universe keeps pulling us apart and then pushing us together.”

“You believe in destiny now?”

“Don’t you?”

 _No,_ Nico should answer, _I don’t believe in fate._

(But she does.)

(She had since that midsummer day she had first seen Karolina peek into her shop and all of her believes had started caving in.)

“Wait, what’s your point again?” Nico asks instead, the whiskey mudding the already convoluted speech Tandy was giving her.

“You and Karolina… I think you’re like Ty and me,” Tandy says simply like it means anything at all.

Nico can’t help the next words that come out of her mouth, no matter how much she tries. 

“I thought Ty wasn’t your boyfriend.”

Tandy’s face stays carefully blank- and god, Nico’s truly an asshole today. “I thought Karolina wasn’t your girlfriend.”

And, well, _touché._

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Nico says as she sips her whiskey when Tandy gives no sign of ever continuing her brilliant statement, “How are we like you and Ty?”

“You make each other better, balance each other out. I didn’t use to be the best person around, I was fatherless, friendless, homeless.”

Nico’s hand falls on Tandy’s thigh, interrupting her because that was just not true. “You were more than that. You were always more than what happened to you.”

Tandy’s eyes shine with tears that will stay unshed, and Nico knows her too much, knows her too well, sometimes.

“I used to run from all my problems,” Tandy says, pausing for a bit before she adds on, quieter, like a secret and a peace offering all at once, “Until Ty.”

And Nico knew that.

Just like she knew that some part of her had been waiting for Karolina her whole life, waiting for someone who would just _get her,_ no question asked. 

Just like she knew that every time she had scoffed at all those romcoms Alex liked to watch, all those dating shows, all those couples, she was just pretending not to be touched by those things- because if she admitted she wanted them and if she now admits she wants Karolina, what was there for Nico but disappointment?

Tandy looks at her, expectant, and Nico sighs and tells her what she already knows, too.

“I used to pretend nothing could touch me. Until Karolina.”

“And I’ll cheer to that,” Tandy smiles and Nico smiles back.

Their glasses clinking together is the only sound reverberating in the room, before Nico speaks again, “Let’s never do this again.”

Tandy looks at her, all mock-serious and half pouting lips, before nodding once with gravity. “Agreed.”

Nico scoots closer to her, resting her head against her shoulder, and Tandy wraps an arm around her without saying another word.

(Yeah, sometimes she really loves Tandy.)

**

A week later, and Nico still hasn’t said anything to Karolina about the l-word. 

The conversation she had shared with Tandy was always bouncing around her brain like the most annoying summer hit she can never seem to shake off, which was immeasurably annoying whenever she hung out with Karolina- hang out, date, Nico isn’t sure which one she should use anymore.

A week had passed, and with each day, Nico felt more and more like a coward.

Because what if she was in for heartbreak? What if Karolina laughed at her? And what was she risking, following Karolina, following this feeling, into the unknown?

She was already in too deep, without ever having uttered a word. She doesn’t want to think what would become of her if she actually told her she loved her out loud.

And Nico feels like she’s waiting for a sign, like one morning Karolina would just wake up beside her and kiss her and everything would be different.

Yeah, as if.

It’s not like Nico’s losing any sleep over this whole debacle, though, because she's a well-adjusted adult who knows how to deal with her feelings. 

Only that's another blatant lie because she is. Because it’s 3 a.m. and she’s still awake, staring at her ceiling like it will give her the answers she needs.

She’s interrupted in her reverie by her phone vibrating so hard on her nightstand it almost falls off. And god, if this is one of Alex’s latest idea of a prank, she’s going to kill him when she sees him next.

Nico groans as she reaches for the phone blindly, blinking at the harsh light of her phone’s screen.

It’s not Alex, instead, it’s Karolina’s name flashing on her phone.

“Hullo?” she mumbles in the phone.

“Did I wake you up? I woke you up. God, I’m so sorry, Nico I just--”

“You didn’t wake me up,” Nico rushes to assure her, “What do you need? Because you sound too panicked for this to just be a booty call.”

There’s a moment of silence from the other end, and Nico has to check if Karolina had accidentally hung up on her. 

Then- “I’m not panicked.”

“You kinda are, Karrie. What do you need?”

“You? I-- I know it’s late, but could you maybe come over?”

Nico is dressed and ready to go by the time Karolina finishes her sentence. “I’ll be right there.”

On exciting news, Nico had never managed to make the short track from her apartment to Karolina’s so quickly, she may had set a new record. On less exciting news, Nico may never recover from running up four flights of stairs.

Karolina opens the door while Nico is still bent over herself, desperately trying to force air into her lungs.

“Are you okay?”

Nico holds her hand up, still trying to catch her breath. “I ran,” she pants, “Up the stairs. Bad idea.”

Karolina should be laughing at her right about now, but she isn’t, and that’s how Nico knows something was truly wrong. She frowns, reaching for Karolina’s hand, but Karolina seems not to notice, opening the door further.

“Cute PJs,” Karolina does quip, though.

Nico blushes, looking down at the witch hats that dot her pants. “You sounded kinda in a hurry.”

“I’m sorry,” Karolina winces, like the sound of Nico’s voice had reminded her why she was there in the first place, “I shouldn’t have called, I’m better now. If you want to--”

Nico puts her hand over Karolina’s arm, squeezing. “Hey. I’m here.”

“I-- yes.”

In Karolina’s room, Nico doesn’t know what to do with her body, feeling big and cumbersome and altogether useless. What do you do when the girl you love, the girl you would do anything for, closes herself from you?

(What do you do when you haven’t even told her you loved her, yet?)

“Karolina, do you want to maybe talk about it?”

Karolina nods then jerks her head in negatives, staying completely still on the bed, folded into herself and Nico's heart aches.

“Why not?” Nico asks as gently as she can muster.

“I don’t know.”

“Karolina… you called me here. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“I know. I just-- I didn’t exactly give you the whole story, that time,” Karolina stops, eyes trained on the floor, “I ran away from home, yes. But I also run away from a cult.”

“What?”

“My mother was- is- the head of what can basically be described as a weird new age cult,” Karolina says, words clinical in that practised way that could only come from years of therapy- and Nico would know.

“I was the poster child for it. Then there was a whole mess with disappearing kids, a compound that was basically a brainwashing prison…” Karolina trails off, “I got out, thankfully- Xavin- they saved me. But sometimes some weirdo gets a hold of my phone number and starts ranting to me.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I know,” Karolina sighs and shakes her head, “Kind of a lot.”

And, well yeah.

“Kind of.”

“Did I finally scare you off?” Karolina jokes, but there’s real fear behind her eyes, and Nico wants to get a hold of everyone who has ever left Karolina and beat them up into a pulp.

“Not even a little.”

“Are you sure?” Karolina asks, and her voice is so small Nico wants to wrap her into her arms and never let go, “You’re not going to run?”

“Please," Nico scoffs, and Karolina gives her a tremulous smile, "I never run. Walk very fast maybe, but run? Nah.”

“You just ran over here,” Karolina points out and- yeah, she got her there.

“Did I? Doesn’t sound like me.”

“Jerk.”

“No, but, really. You’re amazing, Karolina Dean. You are… you are my light,” Nico says, and it sounds awfully romantic and overdramatic and everything Nico usually never voices out loud, but it’s the truth, “So screw them because you’re worth so much more than anything they can amount for.”

Karolina stays still, like a puppet with cut strings. 

She just stays unnaturally still, staring at her like Nico had just told her she had joined a cult and Nico just watches her back, because she won’t, she _won’t_ take anything of it back. 

So, she lifts her chin defiantly and stares back at her-- at her something, at her _everything_ \- and that’s scary to think but it’s the truth, and it’s almost as terrifying as this wait.

Just as Nico is about ready to run out of Karolina’s apartment and retire from public life and live as a monk in the mountains, Karolina finally moves. 

It starts slow, like a wave, then all at once Karolina it’s in front of her and she’s kissing her like Nico’s never been kissed before. Her mouth fire against hers, the oxygen fuelling it, the carbon dioxide released into the air, the ashes left behind in its quake.

(It feels like a sign.)

She doesn’t know how, or when, but she suddenly finds herself sitting in Karolina’s lap on her bed, wanting and wanting.

“I thought you didn’t do feelings,” Karolina pants, heavy breaths Nico can feel on her skin, leaving kiss after bruising kiss, “That was almost a full emotion.”

She slips her hands into Nico’s hair, letting it down from the braid it was in, spilling like ink around them, a curtain of darkness.

(It feels like a sign.)

“Maybe you bring it out of me,” Nico whispers against her lips, echoing the first words they had ever exchanged.

Karolina pulls back in an instant, looking up at her with her lips parted as if Nico’s touch had burnt her. “What?” 

“I--” Nico swallows the lump in her throat at the sight of a breathless Karolina underneath her, her mind wanders to Alex's words, to Tandy’s- and wasn’t it about time she took a page out of Karolina’s book, that she was reckless, too?

She just hopes this isn’t a terrible mistake.

“I maybe want to make an exception to my no feelings rule,” Nico blurts out all at once- because she doesn’t think she could have said it in any other way, because she thinks she could never be brave enough when it came to Karolina, if not all at once.

“What do you mean?”

Nico takes another deep breath, hands trembling against Karolina's face, but voice steady as she asks, “Do you want to go out?”

“To where?”

“I meant with me. Like, on a date.”

Karolina laugh is nervous, empty of the usual life. “We do that already.”

“Yeah, I know. But I want it to mean something,” Nico says, and desperation is already lacing her voice, but it feels like a tear in her soul when Karolina starts shaking her head and stepping back and away from her, “I want dates, Karolina, and I want kisses, and-- I want you, I just want _you_.”

Karolina just blinks at her. “What we have is good.”

“But what if it’s better?”

Karolina shakes her head, a panicky jerk of her head that squashes all hopes in Nico's chest. 

Karolina starts to stand up and Nico doesn’t know whether to get off her lap or not. She fears the moment she stops touching Karolina, she'll flee, and that's the last thing she wants right now. She settles for leaving most of her weight off Karolina, leaning on her heels.

“Nico...” Karolina whispers and Nico’s heart is on the edge of a cliff, only she’s not certain anymore that Karolina will catch it.

“You make me _happy_ , how--” Nico stands up in a flash, suddenly not standing their closeness anymore, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach and emptier than she has felt in a long time, “How long are we going to pretend you don’t?

“Nico... I-- I can't.”

Nico slows herself down, curls her hands into a fist to avoid reaching out to her. Karolina looks like a frantic animal behind a cage, so frightened it makes Nico’s heart ache. “Karrie. Just give us a chance. You told me once that pain could be worth beauty. I think love could also.”

And here’s what Nico has always swore she would never become, a beggar at Karolina’s feet aching for any form of love she could get from her. She doesn’t know if the nausea that coats her insides is from the heartache or the disgust she feels for herself.

When Karolina shakes her head again, Nico knows she’s lost her. 

She takes a deep breath, bars any tears from falling, and nods.

It’s Karolina’s choice and she has to respect it, no matter how wrong it feels, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much she wants to scream. 

“Why can't we just stay as we were?” Karolina calls after her, grabbing her arm and making her turn again, her eyes are wide open. “We could forget about this conversation and keep going. It’s not like-- it’s not like you _l_ _ove_ me, right?”

But that’s exactly the problem and this time it’s Nico the one shaking her head. “I can't do that Karolina. We can’t go back to how-- we just can’t, and you know that. You do.”

“Why not?” Karolina sounds desperate, panic laced into her eyes like ink on paper, “Just tell me you don’t love me, and we can go back. Just tell me--”

And Nico feels like she’s in a movie, and she can’t change the script, and she can’t say the right thing because there is no right thing, she can just watch herself as she makes mistake after mistake.

“I won’t.”

“Nico,” Karolina whispers her name and it feels like a plea Nico can’t answer to.

Nico is starring in a movie, and it’s a shitty movie.

“Don't make a liar out of me,” Nico says, because she couldn’t stand becoming that too for Karolina’s love- or lack of it, “Don’t make me say I don’t love you.”

Karolina frantic shaking stops all at once, she looks as if she’s been struck down by lightning, her grips slacking. 

She scrolls Karolina’s hand away, and God when did this get so fucked up? Nico wants to laugh, she wants to cry- she wants to kiss her, but she won’t if it would mean nothing to Karolina. She has more self-respect than that. 

“I’m sorry.”

And hell, if this is the last time, she wants it to at least mean something to Karolina, she needs it to mean something to her. She can’t be just another girl who was lucky enough to fall into bed with her, who was stupid enough to fall in love with her.

“Nico, please.”

So, Nico takes another deep breath, stops her hands from shaking. She needs to say this, as much for Karolina as for herself.

“I know we never promised each other anything, and maybe that was what you wanted, but I only wanted for you to be happy. And maybe I’m the one who got selfish because _I_ wanted to be the one who got to make you happy.”

Karolina doesn’t say anything, but a stray tear falls down her cheek and Nico clenches her fists at her sides in an effort not to brush it away. 

“Yeah, maybe I’m selfish. I wanted it to be me.”

“Nico,” she says, and her voice shakes, “Please don’t do this.”

“I’ll see you around, Dean.”

“Wait. Please,” Karolina says, and it sounds broken, and it sounds like a _wait for me,_ but Nico can’t do that- it’d hurt too much.

And just like that, Nico turns away and steps out of Karolina’s door and out of her life.

(It had felt like a sign.)

**

The next morning, she doesn’t even have the luxury to forget what had happened even for a few seconds, reality crashing down on her unannounced and persistent just like the blinding light piercing her eyes, filtering through the curtains she had forgotten to close the night before.

What was worse was the fact she had expected for it to change something, to mean something. Instead, she's left with the same empty hand as she had started with. And maybe she was wrong for thinking that professing her love would fix the mess she had walked into, maybe sometimes people just don't love you back.

It was an impossibility, Nico realizes, to know Karolina and not end up with Nico’s heart in her lap, an unwanted wanting thing pressed into Karolina’s skin, staining her hands scarlet. It was just as much an impossibility to have Karolina’s own in any capacity. 

She should have known.

She’s sure all of this wouldn’t be hitting her half as hard wasn’t it wedding season, her shop swamped with orders from blushing brides and anxious mothers-in-law.

But this is Nico’s job, and she’d be damned if Karolina took that away from her, too. 

_She already had her heart_ , Nico thought bitterly, _and_ _what more could she want?_

She avoids watching the front now, though, because Karolina may not come inside anymore, but Nico still saw her pass by, and even _that_ was too much. 

Tandy and Alex are understanding for the most part- they took turns, Nico realized one night, so that she never had to go drink by herself, so that she never had to _be_ by herself. 

Then there was the matter of her room, that was full of Karolina’s reminders, blonde hair on her pillow, her scent in the bedsheets, a shirt she had forgotten what feels like a lifetime ago- forgotten, or maybe she should say stolen- and of how she had to practically deep clean her bedroom to get everything out.

(She couldn’t bring herself to toss the shirt out, not yet, instead it’s stashed under three of Nico’s black skirts she hardly ever puts on anymore and two of her work shirts.)

So, yes. 

Nico’s coping. 

And the fact she’s getting shit-faced drunk at a bar on the regular, says nothing about how well she’s coping. The fact she avoids looking in the direction of any flashes of blonde hair says even less. The fact she’s not even trying to get over Karolina by getting under someone else- as Tandy had so eloquently put it- maybe does say something.

Whatever.

Days blend into each other until Nico barely knows what else there is in the world but work and beer.

She tortures herself with snippets of memories, once in a while. Little moments between her and Karolina that felt like they mattered. Nico savours each of them as if they were lines of poetry, slowly, passing over every gesture, recalling every word shared, every kiss, every fuck.

It’s kind of fucked up, but that’s how Nico stays sane in the lonely stream of the weeks that pass her by.

Until one day, the unexpected happens, because when she comes back from her lunch break Karolina is there, in the flesh and holding a small blue flower and, _really_? Nico just can’t catch a fucking break.

( **Myosotis,** commonly known as forget-me-nots:

 **Appearance:** little clumps of small flat flowers, that are mostly light blue, red or pinks, with a yellow centre;

 **Meaning:** true and undying love, fidelity and loyalty in a relationship despite separation;

 **Symbolism:** make memories that last.)

“Where did you get that flower?”

“From the…” Karolina trails off, her throat bobbing up and down, and Nico would almost be endeared if she wasn’t a mess, “From that vase. It was on the ground. I picked it up.”

Nico feels like these words should have more than one meaning. She shakes her head. Not what she should be thinking right now.

“What are you doing here?” and her voice sounds harsher with each syllable. 

Which is stupid, because it’s not like Karolina wanted to hurt her when she’d turned her down. It wasn’t her fault Nico developed feelings for her.

“I was thinking we could talk about that partnership, with the flowers and… do you remember that?”

Falling asleep, Karolina pressed against her, the taste of the night so bittersweet, so full of past heartbreaks but also of so much hope.

Yeah, Nico remembers. She remembers more than she’d like to.

“Yeah,” Nico breathes in slowly, and she modulates her voice so that it goes from harsh to the same kind of polite monotone she uses only with suppliers and shitty costumers- and when did they become this? “We can talk about that.”

Business she can do. Business she can handle.

(Nico wants to kiss her so badly despite everything it’s actually sort of embarrassing.)

“I was thinking we could put up a sign or something here, to bring in potential costumers who wanted floral tattoos. And I could put up your flowers in my place, and then I dunno, you could sell the flowers to the people who had them tattooed with small leaflets.”

“Like for what each plant meant?”

“Flowers have _meanings?”_ Karolina asks with the cutest little frown Nico shouldn’t think was cute.

“Yes, they do,” Nico says, before remembering herself and barrelling on, “And maybe also something on how to take care of them.”

“So, that sounds good, right?”

“Yes, yeah. Ok, so we’re done for now? I could send Tandy to yours later for details.”

“Tandy?”

“She handles the financials,” Nico says because she couldn’t find a way to say ‘ _I don’t think I can be alone around you’_ that didn’t sound pathetic to her own ears.

Karolina nods, but she doesn’t turn around, her eyes so blue and entirely too serious. “I also wanted to talk about what happened.”

Nico jerks her head in negatives before Karolina can continue. 

“No, no we can’t,” Nico says out loud and Karolina’s face falls.

“Nico, I just--” Karolina starts, and she looks devastated, but Nico won’t let her speak another word shaking her head with a determined jerk.

There’s this sick feeling in her gut, watching Karolina be as affected by this as Nico is- because it isn’t _fair_ that she is, Karolina shouldn’t be allowed to be upset by this, not when she’s the one who didn’t feel the same, not when Nico is the one who had played all of her cards and had lost everything.

And that brings a different sick feeling to her stomach because it’s fucked up and Nico doesn’t want to become someone who thinks like this.

(She wonders how much she’d change of herself for a chance to hold Karolina again.)

“No. You just don’t. I’m not ready for this.”

“We were friends before,” Karolina says anyway, and Nico wants to scream because Karolina always had to push and push and push and the one time Nico did, suddenly they were glass shards on the floor.

“We weren’t,” Nico runs her hand over her own arm, gripping her forearm trying despite everything to stay anchored to the moment.

“Nico…”

She makes her voice hard as stone, eyes colder than steel. “We were _something_. We will always just be _something_.”

Tandy chooses this tragic- and more than a little pathetic line if Nico were to be honest- to come back around from her own lunch break and Nico may sometimes forget from where exactly Tandy had walked into Nico’s life, but she’s always reminded by her fury- because Tandy was something else when angry, something cold and scary and terrible that could make grown men cry.

“I think you should leave,” she says, her eyes devoid of any teasing or fondness she may had had for Karolina.

“Tandy, I just need--”

“What you need to do is back off, Blondie,” Tandy positions herself between her and Nico, effectively shielding her away from Karolina’s eyes, “Right now.”

The different nickname seems to do it, Karolina jerking back as if burned.

 _Good,_ Nico’s darkest part whispers in her ears.

“I’ll see you later, then?” Karolina tries again, puppy dog eyes in place, “For the details.”

Nico nods. Then shakes her head. “I’ll send Tandy.”

“Oh. Yes. Right. Okay.”

“See you later, Blondie.”

Karolina flinches again at the nickname, before getting out of the shop, shoulder hunched.

When Karolina is finally out of earshot, Tandy turns to her with a concerned look on her face. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Nico sighs, hand pinching the bridge of her nose, already feeling the headache coming in.

“Are you really?”

Nico shrugs, because no, she isn’t, but what can she do about it?

Tandy turns the closed sign on the door, before turning to her with a smile. “Wanna get drunk about it?”

Actually, she can do that.

**

They get drunk about it.

They get very drunk about it.

They get so drunk about it, Tyrone had been called ten times in the span of the last thirty minutes, Nico only managing to stop Tandy from phoning him an eleventh by taking her phone privileges away.

By the time it actually becomes socially acceptable to be drinking, Tandy is passed out on the couch drooling onto the couch. And if Nico were a bit more buff, she would have carried her to her own bedroom, but since she’s not, she just covers her with a blanket before slipping outside.

The air isn’t as cold anymore, a soft breeze greeting Nico as she steps outside.

It’s almost spring again.

(New beginnings.)

She walks into the hole in the wall pub Karolina had shown her what feels like ages ago.

(And old habits.)

As she sits in one of the booths with her beer, glaring at anyone who dared come near, Nico realizes she had never felt this stuck in her life. 

She can’t move on, no matter how hard she tries and unfortunately, she’s also drunk enough at the moment to consider the possibility that Karolina had felt something for her too.

Because she _knows-_ as clearly as she knows the sky is blue and the grass is green- that Karolina had felt something for her, too. It was in the way her hands had cupped Nico’s face with every kiss, it was in the way she had smiled in the morning when they woke up together, it was in the way she had whispered ‘ _Wait’_ as Nico had walked away.

But then, as always, life just had to prove Nico wrong, because her eyes wander to the bar counter and find Karolina, a girl so close to her she’s practically on her lap- her hands moving up and down her arm, grazing over her skin, her tattoos.

Lupus in fabula, speak of the devil, and all that shit.

Then, as if guided by fate or some other fairytale gimmick, Karolina's eyes meet hers across the room.

Because of course, this is Nico’s life. Of course.

Nico watches as Karolina freezes, just for one second, the girl wrapped around her barely noticing it, Nico thinks, by the way she keeps rubbing against her. 

And while yes, Nico has no right to feel jealous or possessive or whatever- not at this moment, and not even before by the looks of it- she can’t help the spike of annoyance at the sight and growing by the minute. 

It probably doesn’t help she can’t stop _looking_ at them.

Neither can Karolina- or so it seems- since she just keeps looking at Nico, face blank in a way Karolina’s never was with her. Only, just when Nico thinks she might do something stupid like walk over to them and kiss her in front of the girl, Karolina’s eyes gloss over her like Nico wasn’t ever even there. 

And Nico will be honest, that fucking _hurt_ more than she thought possible.

She downs her beer, stumbling to her feet and out of the swamped pub that had started to feel a little too claustrophobic for her tastes.

The night air hits her like a punch to the gut, but it's nothing that comes even close to what seeing Karolina with another girl had made her feel.

She barely makes three steps, before she’s stopped by Karolina’s hand on her arm.

“What are you doing?”

“Was thinking of throwing myself into a fountain, you know, for fun,” Nico deadpans because she’s apparently not drunk enough to not be affected by the way Karolina’s holding her now.

The joke flies right over Karolina’s head.

“That’s illegal!”

“Only if you get caught,” Nico points out, swaying away from her hold, “What happened to miss 'live a little'?”

“She doesn’t want to become a convicted felon.” 

“Sure,” Nico drawls- or slurs, she’s not really sure.

Nico stares at Karolina, and Karolina stares back, and when the silence becomes too much for Nico to handle, she breaks it. 

(She’s found as of lately that she’s exceptionally good at breaking things.)

“Well, since you won’t join me, you can kindly fuck off.”

Karolina does not kindly fuck off. “I think I’ll walk you home.”

“Won’t your girl be disappointed?” and if Nico’s voice is tinted with poison and green, green jealousy, well, that’s her business alone.

“There’s no one else,” Karolina says with clear eyes like the statement meant more than what Nico thought it did.

Nico shrugs because her head hurts too much to be thinking about Karolina this much. “Suit yourself.”

They walk in silence, and Nico can’t remember one instance where they had nothing to say to each other. She had never felt this awkward, ever- she doesn’t know what to do with her hands, with her fidgeting fingers, with her unwavering feelings.

Karolina’s hand brushes against her and a spark jolts in her arm. When she looks Karolina’s way, she’s already looking back at her, soft smile and terrible, horrible blue eyes trained on her.

Nico crosses her arms over her chest and Karolina’s smile falls.

_Good._

Nico does sober up a bit after that touch, though, just enough that any feeling of sadness or embarrassment is completely eclipsed by her anger, just enough that when they finally arrive at her apartment’s door- after the most awkward elevator’s ride of Nico’s history- and Karolina lingers still, looking at her with those puppy dog eyes, Nico finally erupts.

(And anger she knows. Anger she can do. Anger was the opposite of a feeling.)

“Why won’t you just _go_?” she more or less shouts in Karolina’s face, who visibly flinches at her outburst.

“Nico…”

“No, seriously. Just go, you did the right thing and brought me home. Now you can go fuck that girl at the bar, she must miss you terribly.”

“I hoped…” Karolina frowns, trying to look Nico in the eyes, “I hoped maybe we could talk?”

Nico rolls her eyes, shaking her head because of course, _of course,_ Karolina doesn’t get it. Of course. _She_ wasn’t the one who got her heart stomped on. _She_ wasn’t the one who had to pick herself up once again.

(Some messed up wanting part of Nico wonders if she’ll ever be someone else first choice, if she’ll ever find someone who looks at her, and only sees _her_ , someone who’ll look at her like Tyrone looks at Tandy.)

“Nico, please,” Karolina pleads, and some twisted part of Nico wants to watch her beg on her knees. 

She blinks back in shock at the thought. 

“I told you! I don’t _want_ to talk.” 

The way Karolina’s shoulder slump in defeat makes Nico want to kick her and punch her and kiss her. “I hoped maybe that had changed.”

“It didn’t. Obviously. God, why do I even miss you,” Nico says, and she meant it to come out as a question, but it only sounds like flat out defeated desperation.

“You don’t even know who I am.”

Nico frowns, taken aback, because that’s just not true. “I know you.”

And yes, maybe Nico is a little drunk and on the doorstep of her apartment with her last fuck buddy who was supposed to stay just a fuck buddy and not this huge commitment that she had made such the moment she had acknowledged that she was, y’ know, in love with that particular fuck buddy. 

Totally normal stuff.

(God, what a mess.)

But. But, she knows Karolina. Maybe more than she wants to at the moment, but she knows her in the same way she knows herself.

She knows she’s kind and generous and believes in the pretty things in life. 

She knows that those believes weren’t born out of naivety, but out of pain and suffering and so much survivor guilt to build a new plane of existence. 

She knows Karolina was just like Nico, standing on a precipice and only wanting to be loved, loved, loved.

She knew Karolina was so much more than all that.

(She knows that she doesn’t want to know all of that anymore.)

“I know you,” Nico repeats, and she may not be shouting anymore, but she makes her voice cold, her eyes stone, as she lays out every thought that had ran in her brain for weeks, “And I think I figured it out because I think you love me too. And I think you’re too scared to do something about it.”

“Nico, you’re drunk.”

“Yeah, maybe. But so are _you_. And that won’t mean it isn’t true,” Nico stumbles slightly on the front step, and Karolina- sweet, kind Karolina- steadies her for a second, before retracting her hand as if she had been burned.

Karolina takes one step back, getting back inside the elevator, eyes never straying from Nico’s.

“Hey. Hey, before you go fuck off with that girl…” Nico says because she’s not done, she's not _done,_ and she may never be done, “I want to cash in that question.”

“I don’t think I want to play that game anymore, Nico.”

“Do you love me?”

Karolina doesn’t say anything in answer, but it’s okay, Nico can read the answer on her face. And Nico just watches her as she hits the button for the ground floor.

“Yeah, that's what I thought,” she whispers, leaning her head against her door and willing her body not to follow.

Like a flash, Karolina’s arm comes in between the elevator’s doors.

Nico wavers, and Karolina steps closer and closer, arm already wrapped around Nico’s waist somehow, and Nico’s own hands on her hips, and it would be so easy to be kissing right now Nico doesn’t know why they aren’t yet.

Nico knows it’s a bad idea, to end up in Karolina’s bed again- or like in her own in this case, but the point still stood- but she wavers, just for a moment, for the alcohol flowing in her veins, just for long enough to pretend it isn’t such a bad idea. And at that moment, Karolina bends down and kisses her.

And Nico wants to say she doesn’t respond in an instant, but it’d be a lie because she does. She drags Karolina out of the elevator and into the white wall, slamming her back against it.

Karolina smells faintly of smoke, tastes like it a little, too, and there’s a hot spike of jealousy that makes Nico bit down on Karolina’s lip until she moans in her mouth. Nico spares a second to grin, before attacking Karolina’s mouth again.

“I don’t think this is such a smart idea.”

Nico grunts against her mouth.

“We should--” Karolina’s own moan cuts her off, “Probably stop.”

Nico grinds against her thigh.

“I should--”

“Shut up,” Nico interrupts her, and pushes her inside her apartment, “Just shut up.”

The door closes behind them feels like the last nail hammered in Nico’s coffin.

**

She wakes up to a dry mouth and the shittiest headache she’s ever had since that time she had woken up naked with equally naked Alex and Victor- a night she doesn’t ever, _ever_ want to remember. 

She groans as she search blindly for the painkillers and water she hopes past-drunk-Nico had left on her nightstand. Only it’s not there and past-drunk-Nico is an asshole.

She trudges to the bathroom, gulping down two pills the moment she finds them in her mirror drawer.

She watches her bloodshot eyes in the reflection.

(She looks like a bad decision wrapped in a big mistake.)

She lets the water run for a bit before splashing it onto her face. And it's like this, with tired eyes and dripping water and a _surprising_ amount of hickeys left all over her neck, that the night she just had comes back to her in a flash.

Nico watches her own eyes widen in the mirror.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

 _Fuck,_ thinks Nico once more with sudden clarity, watching the water run and run and run in the sink. And then, out loud, “Fuck.”

She turns, and yup, her back is a mosaic of thin red lines and bite marks.

(Nico should not like it as much as does.)

(Nico should not want to wake Karolina up and go at it again.)

She peaks back into the room, and there Karolina is, snoring. And Nico always knew life was unfair, but the fact Karolina’s beautiful even like that- bed hair, drooling slightly, hands sprawled on the mattress, _naked_ \- well, it only made the fact clearer.

She tries blinking, but Karolina’s body doesn’t disappear.

Karolina stirs slightly and Nico’s mind goes through all seven stages of grief before she has the presence of mind to react.

She closes the door in a flash and with a resounding thud, hands shaking.

Okay, Nico, calm down. You could always sneak out of the window and wait on the fire escape until she leaves. 

Only she can’t because it’s fuck o'clock in the morning and she’s only wearing underwear and a t-shirt that’s too long for her and that smells too much like Karolina.

And Nico _has_ to get away.

She has to go before she forgets why she left in the first place before she forgets why she had handled Karolina at an arm's length for the last weeks before she remembers why she loved- loves- her.

“Nico?” Karolina’s voice calls through the door, and Nico can’t leave, not when Karolina sounds small and uncertain, she just can't.

(This feels like another tragedy in the making.)

She drops her forehead to the door. “Yeah?”

“Can you come out please?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Karolina echoes back with what Nico thinks is a tint of amusement, or maybe desperation.

Nico opens the door.

Thankfully, Karolina had put a shirt on. Less thankfully, it was one of Nico’s- she ignores the spike of heat she feels watching a bed-haired Karolina in her clothes, looking properly fucked- and wow, Nico hadn't hold back either. hadn't she?

“I feel like we should talk about this,” Karolina starts, and nope. Nico is _so_ not up for this.

She finds her jeans on the floor and puts them on as quickly as she can. “I feel like we shouldn’t.”

“Nico. We’ll have to talk at some point.”

And Karolina looks earnest and hopeful and all those kind of things Nico doesn’t want anymore.

“Not if I can help it,” she shakes her head, grabbing the first jacket she sees and more or less running out of her apartment.

She hears Karolina call her name. She doesn’t stop.

(She only realizes she had taken Karolina’s when she puts her hands in the pockets and finds a small napkin folded inside, a string of numbers inside and the imprint of bright pink lipstick.)

(She throws it in the first trash can she sees without a lick of guilt.)

**

True to Nico’s word, they don’t talk about it.

**

Nico would like to say she’s been mature about this whole accidentally falling into bed with Karolina thing, but it’d be a pretty farfetched lie. And if Nico were to tell the truth, she’d also have to say that it may have had been all Nico’s fault this time.

She still has Karolina’s jacket draped around her desk chair, and she should really give it back, but she can’t face Karolina, not when Nico knows all she wants to do is talk. And Nico won’t talk about this with her, because she doesn’t think she could do it without screaming, or without crying, or without wanting to kiss her.

She doesn’t know which one would be worse.

Actually, no. On second thought, she does know what’s worse. It’s Tandy’s not-so-quiet judgement about the whole thing. 

Apparently, Nico wasn’t to be pitied anymore over her heartbreak, but instead prodded about it forever, because she was _‘an emotionally constipated idiot’_ who should really just _‘talk to Lover Girl who sounded more heartbroken than Nico herself that day, and Tandy was in the apartment that morning and the previous night and did Nico remember that when they loudly fucked all over the hallway?’_

(Nico had _not_ remembered the fact at the moment, for the record. She was... otherwise occupied.)

So, at the moment, Nico thinks that either of two things will happen.

Either Tandy will snap and lock Karolina and Nico together in a room until they talked, or Nico will finally cave in and talk to Karolina so that they can agree to a peaceful existence as almost neighbours and almost friends.

Again, Nico doesn’t know which one would be worse.

And honestly, the last thing Nico thinks was going to happen is a panicked phone call from Gert and the subsequent run to Karolina’s place. She does feel some sort of déjà-vu as she runs all flour flights of stairs, passing Gert before rushing into Karolina’s room.

Karolina is on her side, facing away from the door, but as Nico watches her, she stirs and turns towards her. When Karolina’s eyes land on her, Nico finds herself thinking many things, like ' _are you okay? '_ or ' _do you want some water? '_ or even ' _I will always love you'._

Instead what does end up being the first thing that comes out of her lips is, “What the fuck is your problem?”

“Nico?” Karolina asks, voice barely over a whisper and so, so confused.

“No, really. How-- why the fuck were you going so fast at night, in the dark? Were you drunk?! Do you even know what it did to me, waking up to a phone call from Gert telling me you were in an accident?”

“Nico?” Karolina asks again, “You came?”

“Of course, I came,” Nico finds herself saying, before snapping back into her rant- because she can’t deal with Karolina looking at her like that, not right now- “It was scary, and I know you don’t care but I am in love you, and you can’t give me heart attacks like these.”

Karolina starts sitting up, a pained look on her face. “I do care.”

“And what the hell are you-- wait, you do?”

“I do,” Karolina says again, and Nico wants to strangle her, to punch her, to break her stupidly beautiful face, to kiss her senseless.

“I’m sorry but what?”

“I didn’t want to,” Karolina starts, before smiling like Nico was the moon and she was the stars shining around it, “I didn’t want to fall in love with you, Nico. But I did. God, if I did. And it’s yours if you want it.”

“What?” Nico asks again, because Karolina’s rambling sounds more and more like the product of a concussion, and Gert had said she didn’t slam her head, but maybe…

“My love. Me. Anything, Nico. I’d give you everything.”

Nico opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again, but no sound seems to be coming out.

“So, there,” Karolina says, lifting her chin and looking straight into Nico’s eyes with defiance- which is so not helping the not speaking thing.

“And you had to go and almost die to realize that?!”

Karolina winces, looking away from Nico for the first time in what feels like centuries. “I didn’t. I knew it before, I’ve been trying to tell you for a while now.”

And Nico was an idiot, then.

(She owed Tandy so many apologies.)

“You told me you didn’t love me.”

“I didn’t say that. I just didn’t say anything, because after Xavin… and how could I have told you anything after how much I hurt you? And it’s no excuse, but you are the only one I thought as I was falling. Nico, I want you. I always--”

And Nico can’t hear anything else, not if she wants to keep breathing. So, she surges forward, crushes on the bed and into Karolina’s arms, cradling her sweet face into her hands, and it feels like she’s holding the entire world as she kisses her.

It feels different and the same all at once, and it feels right, and it feels like coming home and falling down to hell at the same time, and Nico would face the fiery pits for Karolina, for her love.

“Does that mean you forgive me?” Karolina whispers against her lips, hands still cupping her face tenderly, brushing away the tears Nico feels trailing her cheeks.

“That depends, do you?”

Karolina’s thumb traces the edges of her ear, the slope of her cheekbones. Nico grips her hips tighter, nails digging into soft flesh. “Do I what?”

“Love me,” Nico says, asks, begs.

“That depends, will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Say it back.”

“Yes.”

“Good, good, that’s…” Karolina mumbles incoherently, before kissing her again.

(And there's this overwhelming kind of love buried beneath Nico's skin, now, and it feels special, and it feels true, and it tastes like Karolina's lips on hers.)

Nico doesn’t know exactly how long they stay like that, kissing. Long enough that Gert feels the need to interrupt them with a loud cough and a louder knock on Karolina’s semi-closed door.

“So, for as happy I am to see you two patch things up, I need to go. Karolina, please don’t open up a stitch making out with your girlfriend. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You have stitches?!” Nico asks, almost launching herself off the bed in an attempt to relieve some of the weight off Karolina.

Karolina’s hands bring her back immediately while still glaring at the spot Gert had been three seconds ago. “Yeah. Only two. My bike jacket was open.”

“Why was it open?” Nico asks, "Why would you even--"

Karolina turns to her, her eyes no longer vacant. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Gert called you my girlfriend,” Karolina says, and Nico stops breathing, “Are you?”

“Do you want me to be?” Nico asks, because while Karolina may love her, well, she’s not very good at being wanted, and Nico had been the first one to want to be more, but she only wanted it if Karolina wanted it to.

“You know how you said there were no answers, that one time?” Karolina says instead of answering Nico’s very easy, very yes-or-no question.

Nico frowns. “Yeah.”

“I think you were right. There are no answers,” Karolina drops a kiss to her forehead, hot lips pressing against Nico’s skin like a promise, “But you are one, to me at least. I think I was always on my way to find you, and I’d love it if I could call you mine.”

“Cool,” Nico mumbles, because she’s cool, it’s cool, it’s not like Karolina had just dropped the best declaration of love of Nico’s life, “Cool, cool, cool.”

“Did I break you?”

She did, a little. Not that Nico will say so. She slaps a hand over Nico’s arm. “Jerk.”

“Stitches,” Karolina hisses through her teeth and Nico’s eyes widen. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

“Kidding,” Karolina says with a grin, and on second thought, Nico will strangle her, “But you could always kiss it better.”

“Fuck you.”

Karolina laughs, hugging Nico to her chest. Nico huffs but brushes her nose against her shoulder before dropping a kiss to one of the freckles she finds there.

“I looked up what the snapdragons meant, by the way.”

“Oh?” and Nico doesn’t know why she suddenly feels so embarrassed, considering the words they have exchanged until now.

“Yes. And I’m almost 100% sure Tandy didn’t come up with the nickname.”

“Oh?” Nico breathes out again, and she’s deeply, deeply considering retiring to a cave in the mountains where no one would ever find her.

Karolina’s smile is fond as she lifts Nico’s chin up, blue eyes never leaving her own, before closing as Karolina leans in, pecking her lips once, twice. “Yes. Stop playing coy, you’re no good at it."

“Okay, but in my defence, I only referred to you like that in my mind until I knew your name, and, like, only once out loud to Alex and Tandy.”

“So, you either thought of me as graceful when you first saw me,” at that Nico blushes, because Karolina isn’t _wrong_ exactly, “Or, you thought I was devious. I don’t know which is better, honestly."

“I thought you were more than you appeared to be. I was right.”

“Smooth.”

“Thank you.”

Nico buries her head into Karolina’s hair, enjoying being close to her again.

“What flowers do you think Tandy is?” Karolina asks, her hand running comforting circles up and down Nico’s arm.

Nico doesn’t have to think about it. “Oleanders.”

“Why?”

“They’re pretty white and pink flowers, but they’re very, _very_ poisonous. Tandy is like that, beautiful but deadly.”

“Should I be jealous?” Karolina jokes, slapping Nico’s arm when she deadpans a ‘ _yes’_ , “What about Gert?”

“A violet. No wait, a delphinium.”

Karolina hums but doesn’t ask for any further explanation. “What flower am I now?”

“Still a snapdragon in some ways, I think,” Nico lifts herself on her forearms, looking into Karolina’s eyes, “They mean strength, too. But maybe also forget-me-nots, and carnations, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“You feel like more.”

Karolina blushes a pretty pink and Nico can’t help kissing her deeply once more.

**

"What about you?" Karolina will ask her later as they lay naked in bed together, and her skin against Nico's feels like salvation and damnation all at once.

Nico drops a small kiss to Karolina's sternum. "Mhm?"

"What flower are you?"

Nico smiles against her skin. "What kind of flower do _you_ think I am?"

"You can't answer a question with another question," Karolina says, and doesn't that feel familiar.

"Why not?"

Karolina tries to wiggle away from her but Nico doesn't let her go far, dropping on her stomach and pinning her to the mattress all in one smooth move, blowing raspberries on her neck. Karolina laughs, batting her away.

"Stooop."

Nico acquiesces but not before pecking Karolina's neck another time. "So?"

"I think..." Karolina's fingers trace Nico's back, then cup her neck. Karolina smooths her thumb over Nico's cheekbone and Nico forgets how to breathe and what's her name and anything that isn't Karolina's name, Karolina's face, Karolina's body. 

"You think?" Nico edges on before she forgets what they're talking about.

"I think you are whichever flower means forever."

**

There’s a new tattoo now, on Karolina’s skin, put there by Molly’s careful hand. 

It’s not hidden by her shirt this time, not on her back either, out of sight or to carry silently on her shoulders. It’s placed on her wrist, small and black, but it’s there for the world to see, I love you, written in Nico’s stunted Japanese.

Nico had kissed the spot when she had first seen it, carefully, oh so carefully, because she knew what it meant for Karolina to put a piece of someone else on her skin.

Nico understood it maybe a little too well, because she had gone to Molly too, one day, and she'd left her with an uncomfortable ache on her chest near her heart and an arrow of yellow snapdragons and red and white carnations etched in the space between her soul and her mind, forever blooming against Nico’s skin.

(Karolina had kissed the tattoo once she saw it, too, and then she had kissed Nico too, for good measure.)

**Author's Note:**

> this thing is a monster and if i have to look at it for one more second i'll just off myself, i swear it was only supposed to be like 10k why can't i ever just shut up? funny thing is i was almost done then s3 hit and like what was i supposed to do? just not write nico and tandy begrugingly being best friends? as if.
> 
> if any of y'all wants to scream at me you can also find me on tumblr @somniatoressinespe
> 
> thanks for reading and for any kudos or comments, they make my day.


End file.
